The chief executive of Rackspacesays the company has closed the gap with Amazon, gaining significant market share in its cloud computing compared to a year ago. In an interview with Reuters, Chief Executive Lanham Napier said a year ago Amazon was "incredibly far ahead," of Rackspace in the cloud computing market. But this year he said Rackspace has closed the gap with Amazon's web services business.SponsorNapier did not provide details about the gap nor how much Rackspace has gained on Amazon. He did say the Rackspace cloud business contributed 10 percent to the company's revenue in the third quarter. Business for cloud computing services has been growing in excess of 100 percent per year. In the second quarter, the Rackspace cloud business grew 17 percent.The cloud business does have its pitfalls, in particular in respect to the tight margins that come with offering the service. Napier said those tight margins have been offset by its hosting business. Rackspace provides hosting to large enterprises. Cloud computing services are primarily provided to customers for hosting websites and renting servers that can be scaled up and back down at any time.But can this scenario continue? Competition is only starting in the cloud computing market. Rackspace competes with other cloud computing providers such as Joyent. Microsoft will soon enter the game. The key will be in how to add margins to the cloud business. Depending on traditional hosting business may get tricky if more of that business goes to the cloud, too.Amazon seems to be fighting that battle on a daily basis. They continue to add features but have to respond to market pressures with competitive pricing. The companyrecently announcedit was dropping prices for its EC2 service.Discuss

  Six years after creating Second Life, Philip Rosedale announced that he would be focusing on a new project. Shrouded in mystery, the Linden Chairman and fellowtweetmeme_url = 'http://www.readwriteweb.com/readwritestart/2009/11/second-life-founder-launching.php';tweetmeme_source = 'rww';Lindenite Ryan Downe began work in October on Love Machine Inc. Said Rosedale in today's blog post, "Yes, we are working on making a version of the Linden Lab LoveMachine (and some other tools too)...hopefully we can sell [this] to some companies and help them out." ReadWriteWeb sought to answer the immortal question - What is love? SponsorLoveMachine is best known amongst Linden employees as a method of peer review. According to a 2006 Second Life Herald article, it was once used as a points-based employee incentive tool. Linden employees gave and received "love" for a job well done. If an employee was well-received amongst his or her peers, their accumulated love currency was redeemable for a cash bonus at the end of the month. Similar to social capital systems like Whuffie Bank, it appears that LoveMachine may become a reputation currency system for businesses. Intrigued, we visited the location of LoveMachine's virtual officefor more information. Judging by the posh waterfront property and lack of outside distractions, the real world's down economy has not affected the peaceful Second Life metaverse. While startup companies in San Francisco are downsizing from their SOMA lofts, Rosedale and Downe have built themselves a tropical paradise. The duo have left their boardroom open for potential contractors to view the company worklist. Contractors have a choice of being paid in US or Linden dollars and must complete an initial project before becoming a long term employee. From the projects given to potential employees we know there is an iPhone app and database involved. At this early stage, other tasks include setting up a server, printing 50 decks of cards and delivering Ryan Downe a steak burrito. For the sake of the company we're hoping the burrito is a lower level priority. Given Rosedale's success at Linden, it will be interesting to see if the plucky entrepreneur can infiltrate middle management and monetize employee incentive programs. While the Second Life universe has been a boon for virtual learning environments, widespread adoption in the boardroom has yet to materialize. Depending on the barrier to technical entry, Rosedale may find more mainstream appeal in this latest venture. Discuss

  News reverberated through the developer community that long-time and highly prominent community contributor Joe Hewitt has quit developing the iPhone Facebook application. While Joe said that Apple has the right to do what it wants, he does not agree with its policies and has chosen to move on. Joe posted this tweetin the afternoon of November 11th:"Time for me to try something new. I've handed the Facebook iPhone app off to another engineer, and I'm onto a new project."SponsorThis guest post was written by Elia Freedman.The ProblemApple's App Store is a mess for small and independent developers. Very few developers are making even a livable wage, and the approval process is a black box.Let's start with making money. Pinch Media reportsthat the average iPhone application has netted (for the developer) a grand total of $8,500, and 80% of developers have made less than that. That's not per month - which would be a starting point for a two-person team - but rather total revenue earned.And as reported a few thousand times, the approval process is a black box. For the most part, developers don't know whether their app will be approved or in what timeframe, making the entire experience a nail-biter.Should Apple Care?Well, of course, Apple should care. Apple should be inclusive of its community and encourage small developers to grow and make a living from developing for the iPhone. Apple rightly views the App Store as a competitive advantage and should continue striving to keep its developers in-house.On the other hand, Apple is not responsible for marketing and selling for its developers. The App Store is a distribution medium, not a marketing and sales platform. Apple has a system in place for enabling customers to quickly and easily purchase and download software for their devices. And it has been a massive success, with over two billion downloads.The difference, though, is that the apps that Apple needs in the App Store most - gaming and entertainment titles - are getting in. And they are being developed by some of the biggest brands in the world. After all, the iPhone and iPod Touch are, first and foremost, entertainment devices.Note that these big brands do not face the same problems as the rest of the developer community. Many have contacts deep in Apple, are magically ushered through the review process in a few days and get great placement on Apple's virtual store shelves. Electronic Arts, for example, has no public rejection stories and currently has titles throughout the list of top grossing apps, suggesting that it is in the top 10% for App Store revenue generation.And so, Joe Hewitt has quit the App Store. It's a great show of unity for small developers, but Apple has clearly linked successful applications to big brands, and those brands continue to clamor for iPhone presence.Guest author: Elia Freedman is the CEO of Infinity Softworks, the leading provider of software calculators with over 15 million distributed. In its 13-year history, Infinity Softworks has developed applications for iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows, Palm OS and Windows Mobile. Elia writes about tech, mobile and running a business on his blog, eliainsider.comand at Twitter as eliajf.Discuss

  The Google executive in charge of Google Enterpriseis talking smack about Microsoft Office, saying that firms will be able to get rid of the software suite in one year's time.Man, those are some fighting words. The remarks came from Dave Girouard, president of Google's enterprise division, in an interview with ZDNet Asia.SponsorIn context, what Girouard says does make sense. Open formats are the rule these days and proprietary formats like those from Microsoft will have less of an appeal. But it may not be just Google that rules the enterprise. Microsoft SaaS offerings will become more robust and a number of new players are making headway.Girouard, one of four presidents at Google, said that in a year's time, Google Docs will have a "point of capacity," that will be enough for people to make the switch from Microsoft Office.He admitted that at this point, Google Docs is much less mature but efforts are underway to add 30 to 50 new features and performance upgrades that will put it in a position to work for the "vast majority" of users.He added that Microsoft Office will never go away but as it stands it is overkill for most users. In his words, Office will be more for specialty users.Hubris? Perhaps. Microsoft still has a huge lead and its Sharepointproduct is really the future for Microsoft's place in the enterprise.But open formats are what's hot. Young people are used to the way the Internet works. They have access to so much information that it is critical for them to port it to where they want it to be. Girouard says this movement will spread into the enterprise.Discuss

  Adobe announcedearlier this week that it plans to lay off almost 10% of its workforce. At the same time, though, the company also announcedthat it plans to expand its investment in e-books and digital publishing. Adobe is creating a new organization within the company that will focus on products for book, newspaper and magazine publishers. With Bill McCoy, however, the company is also losing one of its most visible advocates for open e-book standards in this week's layoffs.SponsorReorganizing Adobe's E-Book GroupsThis new organization within Adobe will bring together the e-book business groups that worked on the Adobe Reader Mobile SDK, Adobe Content Server, Adobe Digital Editions, as well as the group that worked with the New York Times on the Times Reader 2.0. The new group will focus on developing products and business opportunities for digital publishers. These will include support for business models like subscription, advertising and retail. Sony, for example, currently usesAdobe's Content Server to power its DRM solution for e-books. While Sony offers its e-books in the ePub format, it also uses Adobe's Content Server to wrap a proprietary DRM solution around the open ePub format.Bill McCoy is Leaving AdobeBill McCoydrove Adobe's push towards making ePub the default format for eBooks. McCoy, however, is leavingAdobe as part of the restructuring. We can only hope that the company will continue to push for open standards in McCoy's absence. More details about McCoy's role at Adobe can be found at TeleRead.Discuss

  Sometimes, it feels like terms we thought had some meaning really don't apply as much anymore.Take the term "social media," as an example.It's like every SEO marketer decided that "social media," was the ticket to a sweet consulting gig. Just look at Twitter. You find a lot of social media experts with tens of thousands of followers. Kind of feels like you are looking down a street filled with hucksters.SponsorSocial media once served as a term to help people understand the concepts that have risen over the past several years. It helped people understand the tools that can be used to gain a web presence. But the term took too broad of a meaning. At some point, a nervous rush ensued. Everyone needed a social media strategy. In the process, the term and the rush for "social media" adoption became ripe for satire:A More Holistic ApproachBut that's only part of the story. The other, more accurate story, reflects a trend toward a more holistic approach in the enterprise. Social media may only represent the tools we use but social computing reflects a deeper view of how the enterprise will adopt this new generation of lightweight technologies. We disagree that executives will continue to shun the term "social." If they continue to do so, they will be swept out by a generation of far more modern managers.Still, companies lack the capabilities and the discipline to develop operations that integrate lightweight applications into the enterprise. They need help. They use the new tools available but lack the experience for implementation. There is a need for more community managers who can help with the overall approach. These people are not "social media" managers. They use social media tools to help join a culture that is fragmented in part due to the "data silo" approach that has become predominant in the enterprise.We spoke with the people behind two consulting companies about their approach to social computing in the enterprise: Pragmatic Enterprise 2.0and the Dachis Group.Pragmatic Enterprise 2.0Pragmatic Enterprise 2.0 is a new consulting company started by Dion Hinchcliffeand Michael Krigsman. The enterprise, in their view, is still wary of social computing. They are primarily concerned about risk, control and trust. To succeed with social computing, the enterprise has to work toward three major goals:Address key business concernsDemonstrate business valueAcquire social computing competencyBoth Krigsman and Hinchcliffe are respected members of the Enterprise 2.0 community. Hinchliffe is the founder of Hinchliffe and Associates. Krigsman leads Asuret, a company that focuses on project intelligence and risk navigation. They work exclusively with Socialtext, led by Ross Mayfield. Socialtextpredates the Enterprise 2.0 movement.Their approach is a combination of Hinchliffe's 20 years of experience as an enterprise architect and Krigsman's long time work examining IT failure. Sociaitext is their defacto technology environment, which they chose after a review of about 70 companies. The company begins its project by gathering intelligence, followed by tool integration, community management development and a degree of project intelligence to define the risks involved. "We gather strategic intelligence to avoid the downsides and reduce project waste," Krigsman said in an interview. "We leverage best of breed social tools and build social computing competency."Here's a full look at their approach:Pragmatic Enterprise 2.0 OverviewView more documentsfrom Dion Hinchcliffe.Dachis GroupDachis sees the enterprise going through an age-old transformation. Traditional software is essentially adapting to a new age. They call their approach: "Social Business Design." Social Business Design, as they view it, is the process of creating socially calibrated and dynamic business systems, process and culture. That's a mouth full but it reflects the enterprise demand for measured systems that show people are being productive and getting the work done.Unlike Pragmatic Enterprise 2.0, Dachis is technology agnostic, partnering with vendors when it makes sense.The Dachis approach puts a large emphasis on the need to focus on process, culture and technology. This means creating a plan for systems architecture, helping companies adapt to the cultural changes involved and all the aspects of the enterprise that need to be taken into consideration. This means understanding issues about governance and having a pretty keyed in measurement strategy.Here's their slide deck. It's a long one but it moves along. Pretty good, overall:Social Business Design: The Enterprise is Dead. Long Live the Enterprise!View more presentationsfrom Jeffreydachis.Last Words About Social MediaSocial media is still a term we use. But it has become so cliche that it is somewhat of a turn off. It's important to distinguish that the people who have championed the cause for social computing are often deeply involved with the "social media" community. They are important people in the enterprise who should be sought for leadership in bringing the world of social computing to the ways we conduct business.Social media sounds too much like buzz hype. We need to get down to business. Social computing is a good thing. But even better is the proof that these practices work so we may use tools that help get the work done.Discuss

  After years of waiting, FeedBurnerusers can finally see their statsin Google Analytics. Google acquiredFeedBurner in 2007. Since then, there has been a lot of grumblingabout how Google handled the transition and the lack of innovation in FeedBurner since the acquisition. The integrationwith Google Analytics is still hidden and incomplete - right now you can only see feed item click data - but Google promises to slowly add more data in the coming weeks.SponsorSubscriber count - the one statistic that many bloggers are most interested in - is not part of this current integration. Right now, you can only see data about the traffic that your feeds brought to your site. How to See these StatsGetting to this data isn't easy, though. First of all, you have to use AdSense for feed or FeedBurner to track this data. Then, in Google Analytics, you have to go to Traffic Sources and click on All Traffic Sources. After this, you still have to filter your traffic by entering 'feedburner' in the search box at the bottom of the page. In the Campaignsview you can also filter stats by 'feedburner.'In today's announcement, Google explains how to customize the way FeedBurner tags clicks it sends to Google Analytics. Google plans to create more endpoints for FeedBurner data in the near future. More to ComeFeedBurner users will be happy to hear that Google plans to release more features in FeedBurner that will take advantage of this new functionality in the coming weeks. FeedBurner had been lying dormant for quite a while. Today's announcement hopefully signals the end of this stage in FeedBurner's development. Discuss

  In what's got to be the most amusing celebrity tech endorsement of the season so far, Dolly Parton has gone on YouTube endorsing Microsoft's IE8. It's got this great webslices feature, you see. "You've got to have Internet Explorer 8 to use webslices," she says, "shoot, I didn't even know there was a 1 through 7."It's an awfully charming video by one of the greatest musicians of all time. This 63-year old mega-millionaire is downright folksy when talking about web browsers. SponsorHey Dolly, if you like IE8 - you should let Google's Chromesweep you off your feet! Not a lot of features, but it's super fast for a fast-thinking woman like you. Is it customization you're looking for? We know you've seen a whole lot of things all around the world - but have you seen Firefoxyet? Dolly Parton? How are you going to top that, Mozilla?Thanks to James Governorfor finding the above video.Discuss

  Earlier this week, the news of the first iPhone wormmade its way around the net. Since the worm only targeted jailbroken devices and then only those which had the SSH program installed, there wasn't a need for concern on thepart of most iPhone users. However, a second worm which uses the same security hole as the so-called iKee worm has reared its head and this one is far more dangerous. According to security firm Intego, the new worm goes after personal data stored on the device including email, contacts, SMS messages, calendars, photos, music files, videos and any other data recorded by any iPhone app. In other words, if you're the owner of a jailbroken phone, you should now be concerned. SponsorNew iPhone Worm DiscoveredUnlike the relatively innocuous iKee worm which the creator designed more as a "public service" to alert users to the potential for malware on the iPhone, the new worm, dubbed "iPhone/Privacy.A," is the real deal. Where iKee simply switched the iPhone wallpaper to display a photo of singer Rick Astley (a nod to the internet meme of rickrolling),Privacy.A gives the user no indication that it is running on the device.The new worm also operates a bit differently than iKee does, as it doesn't have to sit on the iPhone itself in order to inflect its damage or spread. The hacker can either load the worm onto their personal device and then monitor the network for jailbroken devices to attack or they can load the worm onto a computer. As Intego points out in their post, this computer could be on a public network at an Internet cafe or retail store. In that scenario, the worm would then scan for any other jailbroken iPhones that came within range of the Wi-Fi network and attack them. How to Secure your iPhoneAlthough many jailbreakers are tech-savvy enough to know how to lock down their devices to protect themselves from attack, there are quite a few who have simply followed online instructions such astheseto perform the jailbreak. This group, while arguably somewhat tech-savvy, doesn't necessarily know all the nitty-gritty details about the iPhone filesystem or its security mechanisms.To make it easy on these users, we've provided steps on how to change your iPhone's root password - the common denominator required in order for the malware to gain access to your device. While some may argue there's no need to change your root password if you haven't also installed the SSH program, another necessary element for these attacks to work, we think that's a little short-sighted. It would be easy enough for a malicious hacker to trick jailbreakers into installing SSH by bundling it with some other third-party application offered through underground App Stores like Cydida or Icy. By masquerading as something innocent like a wallpaper-changer or ringtone bundle, a hacker could easily set up a number of jailbreakers with SSH without the victims even being aware that it has been installed. Although we haven't heard of anything like this happening yet, if we thought of it then you can bet that the hackers out there have thought of it too. Changing the Root PasswordThe best protection is to simply change your iPhone root password. That will keep you safe from the current iPhone malware...as least for now. Here's how:Install the MobileTerminal application from Cydia. Reboot your iPhone. Launch MobileTerminal and type in the command: passwdAt the prompt which asks for the "Old Password," type in: alpineAt the new password prompt, type in a new password of your choosing, making sure to pick something strong. Re-enter the password to confirm. You'll then be returned to the Mobile$ prompt which means the change was successful. Now you'll need to change the password for the secondary admin. Type in the command login root.Again, you're prompted for the old password. Type in alpine.Now type in the command passwdYou'll then go through the change password routine a second time, entering in alpine as the old password, creating a new password and then re-entering it to confirm. When you are finished, close the application. Note: these instructions assume you are running iPhone OS 3.0 or higher.Discuss

  A federal lawsuit filed on Wednesday is charging an iPhone development firm with collecting users' cell phone numbers without their permission. The developer, a game-making firm by the name of Storm8, is the entity behind popular games like iMobsters, World War, Racing Live, Vampires Live, Kingdoms Live, Zombies Live and Rockstars Live, among others. The company has five titles ranked in the top 50 free apps list in iTunes and seven titles in the top 100. According to the pending class-action suit, Storm8 used a well-known backdoor method to "access, collect, and transmit" the wireless phone numbers belonging to their software's users. Now the company has publicly respondedto the suit by posting on their forums a sort of mea culpaas well as their plans to ask for a dismissal of the lawsuit due to its "complete lack of merit." SponsorDownload a Game, Give Up Your Phone NumberThe complaint, filed on behalf of Michael Turner (and available in its entirety here), states that all the games retrieved the user's cell phone number and sent it over to the company without informing the user that this is being done. The suit also points out that there's no reason for this to occur since playing an iPhone game doesn't require the developer to have access to this sort of personally-identifiable information. While initially Storm8 claimed the harvesting of these phone numbers was due to a "bug" in their code, attorneys for the plaintiff were quick to point out that specific software code was required in order to retrieve the numbers - no bug could have done that. In other words, the collection was intentional. Storm8's Response: We Erred, We Fixed It, Lawsuit is Meritless Now the company is changing its tune - well, a bit. Instead of calling it a "bug," they're claiming that the phone number collection was due to legacy code that was put in place very early on in the software development process as a way to identify specific devices. Later, the company decided to use the iPhone's Unique Device ID (UDID) instead - a much more common and accepted practice for developers needing an identification method. UDID's aren't associated with a person's name or phone number - they just identify the iPhone itself. However, even though the company changed methods, they didn't remove the old code that performed the phone number collection. Storm8 claims that they did nothing with those phone numbers nor did they provide them to any othercompany. They also say that the database housing the numbers was destroyed in August after they were alerted to the issue. At that time, they took voluntary actions to update their applications to new versions with the legacy code removed. The company states that they plan to ask for a dismissal of the suit because no user "has incurred any damage or loss" as a result of their actions. Unfortunately, they may be right. As despicable as those actions were, the law may be on their side. According to legal news site FindLaw, the law requires that not only was a personal computer accessed, but that the computer was also damaged. Turner's lawyer then will have to prove that Storm8 caused damage because it "impaired the integrity of the data stored on a protected computer." Additionally, cell phone numbers are not considered "protected data" in the same way that social security numbers or bank account numbers are. In other words, despite how icky this privacy violation makes you feel, it may not actually be illegal.In our opinion, that's terrible news. Of course we wouldn't want this to start some sort of "sue the programmer" trend, but we do need to have more control over who's doing what with the personal data stored on our mobile phones - especially if Apple isn't going to look out for us in this case. Shouldn't there be some way to punish developers who go after this private info without our knowledge - whether intentionally and maliciously or not? It seems like we have enough concerns over privacy issues these days, we shouldn't have to worry if our iPhone apps are spying on us, too. Discuss

  Yesterday we wrote about how Demand Media produces 4,000 new pieces of content every day- and whether it can sustain quality at that scale. There was vigorous discussion about the quality issue in the comments, tweetmeme_url = 'http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ad-driven_content_is_it_crossing_the_line.php';tweetmeme_source = 'rww';including from some of Demand Media's thousands of freelance writers. In this follow-up post, we look at the type of contentthat Demand Media outputs. It turns out that much of it is driven by advertising demand. Again we feel compelled to ask: is this good or bad for the Web's future? SponsorDemand Mediais one of the largest producers of content on the Webtoday and is ranked among the top 15 Web properties in the United States. It's also syndicating content to large media sites like Yahoo. All of this means that the type of content Demand Media is producing will get more and more common on the Web.Service JournalismDemand Media claims that its content is not journalism. However, it does compare its model to service journalism(a.k.a. "news you can use"), a concept rooted in the 1960s and common in lifestyle magazines such as Good Housekeeping. This is content such as tips and feature articles about fashion, food and travel.Demand Media told us that it aims for "useful, usable content." The content it produces has an "evergreen quality" to it, they say.CEO Richard Rosenblatt told me at the Web 2.0 Summit last month that Demand Media will be syndicating content more to traditional media properties in 2010 and beyond. They see 'service journalism' content as being complementary to not only magazines, but large portal sites like Yahoo.An interesting observation from Rosenblatt was that Demand Mediacontent is "very similar to Associated Press content." In other words, it "helps fill the pages" for newspapers, magazines and other media properties.Matching Content With AdsWhat may be more controversial is that Demand Media makes no bones about their content being produced in order to put ads around it. OK, almost every online publisher has a similar objective: to make money with contextual ads. ReadWriteWeb makes most of its revenue from online advertising.What's slightly different here is that Demand Media is custom producing content in categories where there is strong advertiser interest. A specific example of that is a YouTube ad program with Targetthat is currently running. In this channel based around holiday consumerism, content created by Demand Media is featured side-by-side with advertising. Below is a screenshot showing an eHow video entitled "How to Make Cornbread Stuffing," with a Target ad to the right. Demand Media told us that advertisers are crying out for new content to advertise against. If a large media network like Yahoo is looking to "create content with ads," the next step for Demand Media is enabling their customers to "order content with ads." An example might be something like this: Demand Media produces a how-to article on playing tennis; then sells it to a Yahoo sports site accompanied by tennis equipment adverts placed around it.ConclusionIs what Demand Media is doing much different from mainstream media publications or blogs?One difference is that ReadWriteWeb (along with many other online publications) is a journalism business, so we strive for editorial independence and there is a 'church and state' line with advertising. Demand Media isn't journalism in the traditional sense - that isn't the reason for its being and the company freely admits that. Demand Media produces content to make money, it's as simple as that really.What do you think: is what Demand Media is doing just a natural extension of contextual advertising? Or is it crossing a line where content is too marriedto advertising?Discuss

  TodayYouTube has announcedits plan to support 1080p videos.This means that those amazing, high-definition videos you uploaded last year will now finally be converted to their original resolutions and will finally look as good as they do on your desktop. The new resolution represents a significant improvement over the current 720p maximum resolution, which leaves all those glorious, pirated segments of old movies tragically blurred and pixelated.SponsorThe fine folks at YouTube cited increased resolutions on consumer video recording devices as the impetus for the improvement.Here's YouTube's example of a 360p image:If you're not uploading videos from your phone, however, you're probably looking at something like YouTube's current HD setting, 720p:And, by way of comparison, this is the new maximum resolution YouTube HD videos will have:Those images are from YouTube. Why they chose a dog's muzzle, we may never know. But we're awfully grateful for the resolution improvements.Also, users are specifically encouraged to upload videos that will showcase the capabilities of the new hotness that is 1080p resolution. YouTube engineer Billy Biggs tells users in the related blog post, "Be creative and choose subjects that really show off the beauty of your camera. We will run the best examples on our homepage in a future spotlight."While it'll be nice to see ourown classic jams restored to their original awesomeness, it will also be interesting to see professionally produced videos now appearing in better HD. Well done, YouTube, and thanks for allocating the resources.Discuss

  Though I'm chronically checking in on services like Brightkite,

  This week, Justin.tvis rolling out new measures to protect copyrighted live video streams from being pirated on their site. The technology the company is using will allow them to remove pirate channels without having to issue a takedown notice first.Using technology from Vobile, an online video publishing company, Justin.tv partners (including FOX), will be able to use VideoDNAâ„¢ "fingerprinting" technology to watermark their digital content. If the content is spotted elsewhere on the site, Justin.tv will automatically remove the infringing channel. Think of it as DRM for real-time, streaming media.SponsorThese measures come in the wake of Justin.tv's legal and PR woes last year, when television broadcasters foundthat the site was being used to illegally redistribute their channels - especially sports and pay-per-view events - online. At that time, the site claimed traffic greater than Hulu's; however having to uphold stricter piracy standards has hurtthose stats, too."This has been part of our long-term effort to work with copyright holders... How can we help them automate the process of removing content?" said CEO Michael Seibel in a recent interview with NewTeeVee.Vobile's solution, VideoDNA, is a compact, unique digital signature, a.k.a. a fingerprint, that can be attached to online video without changing the source content. To identify an unknown video, its fingerprint is found and matched against the entries in the reference database, known as the Vobile DNA Database. If a match is found, the querying application is provided with comprehensive data on the match. The VideoTrackercomponent of this solution is intended specifically for content creators and has reportedly been adopted by many major Hollywood studios.Using this huge library of fingerprints, Justin.tv has worked with publishers to integrate digital fingerprinting with live, streaming media. It's a complicated solution requiring the proactive responsibility of the copyright holders.Check out NewTeeVee's video interview with Seibel below, and let us know in the comments what you think of the new measures for copyright protection of live, streaming media.Discuss