Tubular raises $2.5 million to serve burgeoning YouTube industry

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Tubular, a small San Francisco start-up that provides analytics for YouTube content creators, has raised $2.5 million in venture capital in the latest sign of how far the business ecosystem has evolved around the Google-owned video repository.
YouTube was once known as Wild West of online video, but over the past two years Google has focused on raising the quality of YouTube content through a series of direct investments and the cultivation of third-party "networks".
The result is a cluster of small studios, mostly based in Los Angeles, that acts like a digital Hollywood, pumping out slick YouTube hits.
With the ultimate goal of hosting enough high-quality content to lure big-spending advertisers to YouTube, Google doled out more than $100 million last year in grants to its networks and bedroom stars.
In May Google led a group of investors who poured $35 million into Machinima, a leading network, to stoke growth in the YouTube industry.
That market has now grown to the point that it can support its own start-ups, says Tubular's founder Rob Gabel.
COMPETITION
As more semi-professional and professional YouTube creators enter the sector, with increasing competition among them, there is a growing need for analytical services.
Tubular is one such service, allowing customers to monitor and measure when videos get the most views and comments, or the sources of referred traffic.
The software includes a dashboard that displays the real-time analytics, which are generated by tapping into a stream of data provided by YouTube.
"If YouTube is a multibillion-dollar market, then that's billions of dollars going out to content creators who can then invest that again," said Gabel, a former Machinima employee.
"On every platform, from Google to Facebook to Twitter, people have turned to third parties' helpful tools."
At a high level, the pie is large and continuing to grow rapidly. Former Citi analyst Mark Mahaney estimates that YouTube will bring Google a total of $3.6 billion in 2012.
Rich Heitzmann, a co-founder of FirstMark Capital, which led Tubular's latest funding round, said that Google is far from wringing out all of the potential revenue from YouTube.
"We think the ecosystem is at least the size of Facebook's, considering it has a billion users and if you consider the time spent on YouTube," Heitzmann said.
"The advertising opportunities are there, and yet the ecosystem hasn't evolved technologically."
SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS
Other investors in Tubular's first tranche of equity financing included High Line Venture Partners, SV Angel, Lerer Ventures and Bedrocket Media Ventures.
Still, Gabel is betting that he can create a long-term, sustainable business on YouTube's platform at a time when some Silicon Valley companies are wary of building on the backs of larger companies.
Twitter, for instance, courted controversy this year when it made a business decision to shut off its firehose of data for a number of popular third-party developers to drive more visitors to its own site.
Allen DeBevoise, the CEO of Machinima who is also a Tubular investor, said that YouTube has reason to foster its independent developers rather than squash them.
"It's a thriving and fast-moving ecosystem now," he said. "But a lot of players are needed to make it all work."
Though Gabel acknowledges that the YouTube industry's rapid expansion is no guarantee of success, he has high hopes.

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Instagram tests new limits in user privacy

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Instagram, which spurred suspicions this week that it would sell user photos after revising its terms of service, has sparked renewed debate about how much control over personal data users must give up to live and participate in a world steeped in social media.
In forcefully establishing a new set of usage terms, Instagram, the massively popular photo-sharing service owned by Facebook Inc, has claimed some rights that have been practically unheard of among its prominent social media peers, legal experts and consumer advocates say.
Users who decline to accept Instagram's new privacy policy have one month to delete their accounts, or they will be bound by the new terms. Another clause appears to waive the rights of minors on the service. And in the wake of a class-action settlement involving Facebook and privacy issues, Instagram has added terms to shield itself from similar litigation.
All told, the revised terms reflect a new, draconian grip over user rights, experts say.
"This is all uncharted territory," said Jay Edelson, a partner at the Chicago law firm Edelson McGuire. "If Instagram is to encourage as many lawsuits as possible and as much backlash as possible then they succeeded."
Instagram's new policies, which go into effect January 16, lay the groundwork for the company to begin generating advertising revenue by giving marketers the right to display profile pictures and other personal information such as who users follow in advertisements.
The new terms, which allow an advertiser to pay Instagram "to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata)" without compensation, triggered an outburst of complaints on the Web on Tuesday from users upset that Instagram would make money from their uploaded content.
The uproar prompted a lengthy blog post from the company to "clarify" the changes, with CEO Kevin Systrom saying the company had no current plans to incorporate photos taken by users into ads.
Instagram declined comment beyond its blog post, which failed to appease critics including National Geographic, which suspended new posts to Instagram. "We are very concerned with the direction of the proposed new terms of service and if they remain as presented we may close our account," said National Geographic, an early Instagram adopter.
PUSHING BOUNDARIES
Consumer advocates said Facebook was using Instagram's aggressive new terms to push the boundaries of how social media sites can make money while its own hands were tied by recent agreements with regulators and class action plaintiffs.
Under the terms of a 2011 settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, Facebook is required to get user consent before personal information is shared beyond their privacy settings. A preliminary class action lawsuit settlement with Facebook allows users to opt-out of being included in the "sponsored stories" ads that use their personal information.
Under Instagram's new terms, users who want to opt-out must simply quit using the service.
"Instagram has given people a pretty stark choice: Take it or leave, and if you leave it you've got to leave the service," said Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a Internet user right's group.
What's more, he said, if a user initially agrees to the new terms but then has a change of mind, their information could still be used for commercial purposes.
In a post on its official blog on Tuesday, Instagram did not address another controversial provision that states that if a child under the age of 18 uses the service, then it is implied that his or her parent has tacitly agreed to Instagram's terms.
"The notion is that minors can't be bound to a contract. And that also means they can't be bound to a provision that says they agree to waive the rights," said the EFF's Opsahl.
BLOCKING CLASS ACTION SUITS
While Facebook continues to be bogged in its own class action suit, Instagram took preventive steps to avoid a similar legal morass.
Its new terms of service require users with a legal complaint to enter arbitration, rather than take the company to court. It prohibits users from joining a class action lawsuit unless they mail a written "opt-out" statement to Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park within 30 days of joining Instagram.
That provision is not included in terms of service for other leading social media companies like Twitter, Google, YouTube or even Facebook itself, and it immunizes Instagram from many forms of legal liability, said Michael Rustad, a professor at Suffolk University Law School.
Rustad, who has studied the terms of services for 157 social media services, said just 10 contained provisions prohibiting class action lawsuits.
The clause effectively cripples users who want to legally challenge the company because lawyers will not likely represent an individual plaintiff, Rustad argued.
"No lawyers will take these cases," Rustad said. "In consumer arbitration cases, everything is stacked against the consumer. It's a pretense, it's a legal fiction, that there are remedies."
Instagram, which has 100 million users, allows consumers to tweak the photos they take on their smartphones and share the images with friends. Facebook acquired Instagram in September for $715 million.
Instagram's take-it-or-leave-it policy pushes the envelope for how social networking companies treat user privacy issues, said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
"I think Facebook is probably using Instagram to see how far it can press this advertising model," said Rotenberg. "If they can keep a lot of users, then all those users have agreed to have their images as part of advertising.

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FTC tightens rules protecting children's online privacy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The government announced tighter rules on Wednesday to protect children's online privacy by restricting the collection of data, like the child's location, unless parents consent.
The actions by the Federal Trade Commission mark an update to rules that were based on the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, developed when most computers were big beige boxes sitting under office desks instead of smartphones in backpacks, and online social media was unheard of.
"The Commission takes seriously its mandate to protect children's online privacy in this ever-changing technological landscape," FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a statement.
Under the updated rule, IP addresses, which are unique to each computer, will be added to the list of personal information that cannot be collected from children without parental consent if the data will be used for behavioral advertising or tracking.
Location, photos, videos and audio files were also added to the definition.
Leibowitz said the commission struck "the right balance between protecting innovation that will provide rich and engaging content for children, and ensuring that parents are informed and involved in their children's online activities."
But Senator John Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat and chair of the Senate Commerce, Science and Technology Committee, which oversees the FTC, said he had wanted legislation that went further.
"There are groups that will complain about it (COPPA being too weak), and so will I, but we can't do anything more about it right now," he said. "Children's privacy as far as I am concerned is an absolutely top line issue."
Privacy advocates and advertising companies had been watching closely to see if the agency would go through with a pledge made in August to add IP addresses to the restrictions.
Advertisers had argued against the move since several people in a family - adults and children - could use the same computer. Privacy advocates said it was needed to protect children.
Also under the updated rule, plug-ins and other third parties connected to children's websites and apps cannot allow third parties to collect information on children without parental consent.
Big companies would be able to deal with the changes but the tighter regulators could be onerous for smaller firms, said John Feldman of the law firm Reed Smith LLP.
"I represent companies who are trying to sell products and services," he said. "The bigger companies feel like they can deal with it. There are significant costs that will be associated with this."
Privacy advocate Kathryn Montgomery, who teaches at American University, said the update was needed, given the growth of social networks and mobile computing. She urged the FTC to be tough about enforcing the rules.
"The new rules should help ensure that companies targeting children throughout the rapidly expanding digital media landscape will be required to engage in fair marketing and data collection practices," she said.
The proposal also specifies that family websites, which are websites aimed at children and adults, would be allowed to screen users to determine their ages and only provide protection to children under age 13.
Currently, all visitors to the websites must be treated as if they are under age 13.
The FTC's rule implementing COPPA became effective in 2000.
The updated rule takes effect on July 1. It was approved by a vote of three to one with one commissioner abstaining.

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Vatican takes first spot in Internet domain name draw

The Vatican has come out in first place in a long-awaited draw to expand the Internet address system with new domain names that go beyond the usual .com, .org or .net endings.
ICANN, the corporation that oversees the Internet address system, announced this week the domain name .catholic written in Chinese characters will be the first bid it considers in a drive to expand and reorganize sites on the World Wide Web.
The same extension in Arabic letters ranked 25th in the random draw and the Vatican's application for a version in Cyrillic for Russian and other Slavic languages came in 96th.
Ranking high means the applicant could get approval early next year to operate the new domain and approve addresses using it. In the Vatican's case, Rome could then ensure only genuine Roman Catholic institutions get to use that domain name.
"This is a way to give a coherence and authentication to our presence in the digital arena," said Monsignor Paul Tighe, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.
"Anyone looking online will recognize the site belongs to an institution that belongs to the Catholic Church," he said, adding the new, so-called top level domain names (|TLDs) could also help speed online searches.
.BIBLE AND .ISLAM
For online retailers such as Amazon, whose application for .store in Japanese came in second, early approval could mean a competitive advantage and prompt a quick introduction of the new name.
But the Vatican did not enter the draw for commercial reasons and would not rush to launch its TLDs, Tighe said. In addition, the main TLD it seeks - .catholic in Latin letters - ended up in 1,366th place and may take months before it is approved.
Website owners are now restricted to a few dozen TLDs such as .com and country code domains such as .co.uk or .fr. Many of the 1,930 applications for new TLDs came from companies, including Internet giants such as Amazon and Google.
Several other faith-based groups applied for other TLDs such as .bible or .islam. The extension .mormon was the next-highest religious application drawn, coming in at 118th place.
ICANN (www.icann.org), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has stressed that assigning a certain TLD does not imply any endorsement of the religious group seeking it, just recognition it is the best suited to use the name.
Tighe said the ICANN draw handled applications for TLDs in non-Latin alphabets first, which explained why the Vatican's Chinese, Arabic and Cyrillic extensions came out far ahead of its main TLD in Latin letters.
INTERNET IMPRIMATUR
ICANN invited comments on applications earlier this year. The Vatican's application for exclusive use of .catholic drew criticism from members of several Protestant churches that also use the term, which comes from the Greek for "universal".
"This request is a move by a powerful group to squelch the voices and rights of other Christians," Dave Daubert, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Elgin, Illinois, wrote on the ICANN webpage for comments on the applications.
Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, apparently saw no hope of a consensus on religious TLDs and opposed them all.
Some religions seem to have kept out of the fray entirely. There were no applications for .buddhist, .hindu or .jewish.

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Vatican says pope beats Justin Bieber on re-tweets

Pope Benedict, white-haired, 85, and a neophyte to social media site Twitter, has beaten out 18-year old heartthrob Justin Bieber to set a percentage record for re-tweeting by his followers, the Vatican said on Thursday.
The Vatican newspaper said that as of noon Italian time on Thursday the pope had 2.1 million followers on Twitter, eight days after his first tweet was sent.
While Canadian singer-songwriter Bieber has roughly 15 times as many followers - 31.7 million - the Vatican newspaper said Benedict had beaten Bieber on re-tweets.
It said about 50 percent of the pope's followers had re-tweeted his first tweet on December 12 while only 0.7 percent of Bieber's followers had re-tweeted one of the singer's most popular tweets on September 26, when he commented on the death by cancer of a six-year-old fan.
The Vatican said this was part of a wider trend in which people were looking for more spiritual content.
The pope already tweets in English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish and Arabic. The newspaper said he will start tweeting in Latin and Chinese soon.

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Clashes near Syrian capital, Aleppo airport closed

 Syrian troops and rebels fought Tuesday in suburbs of Damascus as well as near Aleppo's airport, stopping all flights in and out of the northern city, activists and state media said.
The intense fighting underlined the rebels' tenacity in the capital and around Aleppo, Syria's largest city, but also the determination of the Bashar Assad regime to carry on fighting. Activists say more than 45,000 people have been killed in the 22-month civil war.
In the past few weeks, rebels have stepped up their attacks on airports in Aleppo province, trying to chip away at the air power that poses the biggest challenge to their advances against Assad's forces.
The Syrian air force has been bombing and strafing rebel positions and attacking towns under opposition control, but the rebels have no planes or effective anti-aircraft weapons to counter the attacks.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting around the base of Syrian army Brigade 80, part of a force protecting Aleppo's airport, led to the closure of the airport late Monday.
"Heavy fighting is taking place around Brigade 80," said Rami Abdul-Rahman who heads the Observatory. The Observatory relies on a network of activists around Syria. "The airport has been closed since yesterday."
The Syrian government had no comment on the closing of the airport. On Saturday, Syria's national airline canceled a flight to Aleppo because of fighting nearby.
Rebels have warned that they would target civilian as well as military planes using the Aleppo International Airport, saying the regime is using civilian planes to bring in supplies and weapons.
The rebels have been attacking three other airports in the Aleppo area, including a military helicopter base near the Turkish border.
Rebels have posted dozens of videos online showing fighters shooting mortars, homemade rockets and sniper rifles at targets inside the bases.
Activists also reported heavy fighting in the Damascus suburb of Daraya.
The Observatory and activist Mohammed Saeed, who is based near Damascus, said Syrian warplanes took part in bombing Daraya on Tuesday.
State-run news agency SANA said troops killed "tens of terrorists" in Daraya and nearby areas. The regime refers to rebels as "terrorists."
Daraya is few kilometers (miles) from the strategic military air base of Mazzeh in a western neighborhood of the capital.
Amateur videos showed smoke billowing from Daraya from what activists said were the air raids. Another video showed a street covered with debris as fire raged on the second floor of a five-story building.
The videos appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting on the events depicted.

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Egypt orders 15-day detention for Israeli

 Egyptian security officials say a former sergeant in the Israeli army has been ordered detained for 15 days for investigation into his illegal entry from Israel into the Sinai Peninsula.
The authorities say the 24-year-old unarmed Israeli has been in custody since Friday. They announced the arrest Monday.
The officials said Tuesday he is under investigation in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh for allegedly trying to reach the Gaza Strip through Sinai. They have identified him as Andrew Yaacoub Cheteko.
Known in Israel as Andre Pshenichnikov, the Jewish immigrant from Tajikistan made headlines last year when he announced he wanted to move to a West Bank refugee camp in solidarity with Palestinians there.
The security officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

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Palestinians will outnumber Israeli Jews by 2020

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Palestinian statistics bureau estimates that Arabs will outnumber Jews in the Holy Land by the end of the decade, a scenario that could have grave implications for Israel.
The bureau said Tuesday that 5.8 million Arabs live in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. That compares to about 6 million Israeli Jews, according to Israeli data.
It said that based on current birth rates, the two populations would be equal in 2016, and in 2020, Arabs would outnumber Jews by 7.2 million to 6.9 million.
The demographic issue is a main argument for Israeli backers of creation of a Palestinian state. They say relinquishing control of the Palestinian territories and its residents is the only way to ensure Israel's future as a democracy with a Jewish majority.

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Clashes in Syria shut down Aleppo airport

BEIRUT (AP) — Clashes between government troops and rebels on Tuesday forced the international airport in Aleppo to stop all flights in and out of Syria's largest city, while fierce battles also raged in the suburbs of the capital Damascus.
The rebels have been making inroad in the civil war recently, capturing a string of military bases and posing a stiff challenge to the regime in Syria's two major cities — Damascus and Aleppo.
The opposition trying to overthrow authoritarian President Bashar Assad has been fighting for control of Aleppo since the summer, and they have captured large swathes of territory in Aleppo province west and north of the city up to the Turkish border.
In the past few weeks, the rebels have stepped up their attacks on airports around Aleppo province, trying to chip away at the government's air power, which poses the biggest obstacle to their advances.
The air force has been bombing and strafing rebel positions and attacking towns under opposition control for months. But the rebels have no planes or effective anti-aircraft weapons to counter the attacks.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-regime activist group, said the fighting around the base of Syrian army Brigade 80, part of a force protecting Aleppo International Airport, led to the closure of the airport late Monday.
"Heavy fighting is taking place around Brigade 80," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory. The Observatory relies on a network of activists around Syria.
"The airport has been closed since yesterday," he said.
The Syrian government had no comment on the closing of the airport. On Saturday, Syria's national airline canceled a flight to Aleppo because of fighting nearby.
Rebels have warned that they would target civilian as well as military planes using the Aleppo airport, saying the regime is using civilian planes to bring in supplies and weapons.
The rebels have been attacking three other airports in the Aleppo area, including a military helicopter base near the Turkish border. They have posted dozens of videos online that appear to show fighters shooting mortars, homemade rockets and sniper rifles at targets inside the bases.
There was also heavy fighting in the Damascus suburb of Daraya, southwest of the capital. Daraya is one of the closest suburbs to the capital and is on the edge of two important neighborhoods that are home to a strategic air base and government headquarters.
The fighting in Daraya was so fierce that the explosions echoed in some parts of the capital.
Although the regime still tightly controls much of Damascus, its seat of power, rebels have been posing a stiffer challenge in the suburbs. In the past few weeks, there has been fighting near the capital's international airport that interrupted some flights. The road to the airport, just south of the capital, was also closed during the fighting.
The Observatory and activist Mohammed Saeed, who is based near Damascus, said Syrian warplanes bombed Daraya on Tuesday.
State-run news agency SANA said troops killed "tens of terrorists" in Daraya and nearby areas. The regime refers to rebels as "terrorists."
Activists say more than 45,000 people have been killed since the uprising against Assad began 22 months ago.
Daraya is few kilometers (miles) from the strategic military air base of Mazzeh in a western neighborhood of the capital. It is also on the edge of the Kfar Sousseh neighborhood that is home to the government headquarters, the General Security intelligence agency head office and the Interior Ministry. That ministry was targeted in a recent suicide attack that wounded Interior Minister Mohammed al-Shaar.
"The regime is doing all it can to regain Daraya," said Maath al-Shami, an activist based in the Syrian neighborhood of Mazzeh, via Skype. "The regime is dying to get back it back," he added.
"Daraya is the gate of Damascus for the rebels," said al-Shami.
Amateur videos showed smoke billowing from Daraya from what activists said were the air raids. Another video showed a street covered with debris as fire raged on the second floor of a five-story building.
The videos appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting on the events depicted.
In August, activists reported that between 300 and 600 people were killed in Daraya over several days in a killing spree by troops and pro-regime militiamen who stormed the town after heavy fighting and days of shelling.
The Observatory and al-Shami reported sporadic shelling and clashes in southern neighborhoods of Damascus and the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk on Tuesday. The Observatory said shelling and snipers fire killed two people in Yarmouk and two in another neighborhood.

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Clarification: Israel-Palestinians story

JERUSALEM (AP) — In a story Dec. 31, The Associated Press reported that Israel dropped a 5 1/2-year-old ban that prevented construction materials from entering the Gaza Strip. The story should have made clear that the ban applied to Gaza's private sector. Under the closure, imposed following the Hamas militant group's takeover of Gaza in June 2007, Israel allowed small amounts of construction goods into Gaza for humanitarian projects. In 2010 it began allowing such materials for projects under the auspices of the United Nations. Monday's announcement by Israel, part of a cease-fire deal reached with Hamas in November, further eases the ban by allowing private businesses to ship in building materials.

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