A post on ValleyWag recently announced that file-sharing uber-giant BitTorrent would be laying off 12 of its 55 employees.  This accounts for the entire sales and marketing department.  This decision has been made in light of the recent failure of BitTorrent's staff to sell Best Buy its Torrent Entertainment Network for a rumored $15 million.

Since it's only been a year since CEO Doug Walker replaced founder Bram Cohen, it's likely that the entire company may soon be considering a revamp.  After all, Walker commented on making some changes to the store idea last March.

There is speculation that the deal fell through mostly due to the FCC and MPAA's recent crackdown on file sharing.  Outspoken Chairman of HDNet Mark Cuban freshly criticized the MPAA for combating the ‘problem' with prevention instead of promotion (we've all seen those commercials with the hip teens extolling the virtues of not stealing songs).

He claims that movie theaters need to invest in a positive message about the fun of going to the actual theater to watch movies, especially with the ever-growing price of admission.  Author of The Pirates Dilemma Matt Mason agrees with Cuban, saying that theaters should offer a movie-going experience and quality that will never be surpassed by file sharing.

Can you really ever defeat file sharing programs though?  No matter how great the quality and ‘experience', the fact remains that file sharing is free.  And "free" almost always wins.  Unfortunately for them, BitTorrent also recently learned that it's hard to sell something that's free.

If you've got a computer, you know what YouTube is.  In fact, most people, including myself, have uploaded videos to YouTube at one point or another until our accounts have inevitably been suspended.  It's the circle of life on the Internet, and I am very pleased with it.  Without YouTube after all, I would be unable to watch my guilty pleasure, America's Next Top Model.

What's the bad news about YouTube?  Well, the videos that are uploaded are typically of lesser quality.  In fact, the most common complaint that you will see on the video comment sections is about the quality.  In reply, most users will explain that "something" happened to their video during the upload process.  There is a hack to be able to view high quality version of videos, but soon, that hack will hopefully be rendered useless.

YouTube has finally announced all users have the option of watching some videos in higher quality. A blog post on their site claims they're slowly integrating this new feature, and videos uploaded in the proper format will be the first to be available in high quality. The rest of the library will soon follow, with any luck.

Simply go into your user account and select the option: "always show me higher quality when available." High speed Internet is going to work best, because otherwise the videos may suffer from lag time.  Nobody likes lag time.

I have been waiting for this feature for a long time.  Finally, my prayers have been answered, and I will soon be able to watch YouTubeHD.  There are enough capital letters in that word to make anyone excited.

Social networking giant Facebook is teaming up with Paramount Pictures to let users download thousand of clips from the filmmaker’s archives.

The VooZoo application, which launched Monday, was developed by FanRocket. The idea is to let individuals re-live some of their favorite scenes and moments from any Paramount film. Clips last anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes.

Viacom, Paramount Pictures’ parent company, plans to market DVDs through the new tool.

Though FanRocket aims to garner a few hundred thousand users within the first few months, Paramount hasn’t set any revenue goals to its end.

The application features a double-pane window on top – the left side shows the clips you’ve added yourself. On the right, you’ll find a display of your history, with ‘Featured VooHoos,’ or featured clips, just underneath.

(more…)

These are probably the hottest electronic gift items for the 2007 holidays. We've got a little bit of everything in here. Personally I'm waiting for the 3G version of the iPhone so that's not on my list. So instead I asked for an ASUS EEE and got it early! I'd review it but there's so much written about it already I won't bother. Suffice to say that it's tiny and light and fine for basic computer usage.

What? The item you lust after most is not in our poll? Feel free to complain in the comments area!

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Update: Netflix is back up after being down for many hours.  According to TechCrunch and CNET , this happened as a result of a power outage in San Francisco yesterday that caused major sites–including Netflix, Craigslist, Typead, Vox, and LiveJournal–to go down.

Last night as I finished watching Season 3 of Felicity, I sealed up my three Netflix movies and got ready to stick them in the mail this morning. Logically, my next step was to wander over to my laptop to prep my queue for the next round of mail-in movie rentals. Upon heading to Netflix.com, I was greeted by the following message:

"The Netflix web site is temporarily unavailable. It is anticipated that the site will be available again at 11 PM Pacific Time."

Needless to say, I was pretty surprised. I was even more surprised when I received a similar message at 8 AM this morning, saying that the site would be back at 11 AM Pacific time. And, you guessed it, I am still surprised that it is now 2 PM Eastern time, and Netflix is still down, and is likely to be down for the rest of the afternoon.

These technical difficulties are occurring simultaneously with some pretty dramatic changes over at Netflix. According to the Washington Post, the company is reducing its prices for some of its most popular plans by $1 in order to earn back market share from Blockbuster, which gained customers after beginning a policy that allows them to exchange mail-order DVDs with those in the store. From the Post:

Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter believes Blockbuster may have exposed Netflix's Achilles' heel by aggressively promoting the convenience of Blockbuster stores to build its online service. "Netflix has a broken model," Pachter said. "They aren't used to competition and now someone is competing against them very effectively."

Netflix ended June with 6.74 million subscribers, a decrease of 55,000 customers from April. It marked the first time Netflix's total subscribers have declined from one quarter to the next since the service began renting DVDs through its Web site in 1999.

It seems like Netflix is having a rough couple of days. If I had to guess, I would venture to say that these events are probably all intertwined. Does anyone have the details on the Netflix website?

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