Much-hyped free music site SpiralFrog appears to be spiraling out of control.

Few at the digital music company were exactly sure who was in charge following the December 26 firing of SpiralFrog CEO Robin Kent, according to ZDNet. Kent’s ouster created a void in the company’s leadership, the former employees said, and soon after, 5 of SpiralFrog’s 10 board directors and 5 company managers exited.

Now, former executives and industry insiders reportedly describe the company as reeling from a management shakeup, a missed launch date and a lukewarm reception by the major music labels to a business that supports free tunes by selling advertisements.

“The situation at SpiralFrog will certainly give ammunition to those who really never believed in the idea of ad-supported music,” said Gartner analyst Mike McGuire.

Last year, Spiral Frog caught the media’s attention as it began signing up major labels for its free, ad-supported music distribution service. It planned to launch its service by the end of 2006. At the time, the New York Times called the company an iTunes challenger, and The Guardian, a London newspaper, said Apple “took a knock” with SpiralFrog’s emergence.

UNICEF is calling for submissions to its Media Magic Make a Difference! one-minute video contest

People under age 25 are invited to submit a one-minute video on the contest’s theme, telling the world what young people think about the world they live in and how they’re making a difference. The contest’s theme, “A World Fit for Children,” was chosen in honour of the 5th anniversary of the Special Session for Children and its adopted agenda “Building a World Fit for Children.”

UNICEF is asking young video makers to look at the four priorities of the agenda РPromoting healthy lives; Providing quality education; Protecting children against abuse, exploitation and violence; and Combating HIV/AIDS – and to demonstrate how one or more of the goals have affected their lives. Have these goals been achieved in your community? What problems still exist where you live? What suggestions do you have to solve them? What can be done to build a world for children?

The winning video will be featured on the UNICEF and Voices of Youth websites, vodcast by UNICEF, featured in the Media Magic Digest and be included in the ICDB 2007 materials, which are available to broadcasters around the world. The winning director will be honoured at an awards ceremony at the PROMAX/BDA conference in New York City.

The personal computer is moving from being a workstation to being a life- and video-entertainment hub, according to new research. More than half of those surveyed had viewed a DVD on a computer, and a quarter of those surveyed had watched a streaming TV show on their computer.

The study also found that most do not view downloading copyrighted movies from the Internet as a serious crime.

Research highlights:

• The PC is moving from a workhorse to a life-hub and video entertainment center.
• 56% watched a DVD on a PC at some point and 29% viewed a DVD on a PC last month.
• 25% watched a streaming TV show on their PCs.
• 32 million Americans aged 12+ (18% of the US online population) downloaded a full-length movie at some point in the past ‚Äì 20 million of these are regulars, having downloaded in the last month.
• A majority of movie downloaders (80%) only use peer-to-peer file-sharing sites. The population of regular file-sharing users doubled between 2005 and 2006.
• A typical movie downloader from file-sharing sites is 29 years of age and has 16 titles stored on their PC ‚Äì 63% are male and 37% are female.
• Unauthorized downloads of copyrighted movies are not perceived as a serious offense.
• Only 40% believe downloading ‚Äúcopyrighted movies off the Internet‚Äù is a ‚Äúvery serious offense‚Äù ‚Äì compared to the 78% who believe ‚Äútaking a DVD from a store without paying‚Äù is a very serious offense. As another point of comparison, Americans are much more likely to believe that ‚Äúparking in a fire lane‚Äù is a very serious offense (59%).

Google today offered an update on its plans for YouTube and Google Video, saying that Google Video and YouTube will continue to play to their respective strengths:

Google’s strength — and its history — is grounded in search and in innovating technologies to make more information more available and accessible. YouTube, meanwhile, excels at being a leading content destination with a dynamic community of users who create, watch and share videos worldwide.

Google search results already include links to content that’s hosted on YouTube. Starting today, YouTube video results will appear in the Google Video search index: when you click on YouTube thumbnails, you will be taken to YouTube.com to experience the videos. Over time, Google Video will become even more comprehensive as it evolves into a service where you can search for the world’s online video content, irrespective of where it may be hosted.

This is part of Google’s overall goal to give you the highest quality search results possible. For example, some users who do a Google search for Martin Luther King, Jr. may want to find websites about him. Others may want to see images of him. And others may want to watch video footage…

YouTube, as we’ve stated previously, will remain an independent subsidiary of Google, and will continue to operate separately. Google will support YouTube by providing access to search and monetization platforms and, when/where YouTube launches internationally, to international resources. YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen and the rest of the YouTube team will continue to innovate exciting new ways for people to “broadcast themselves.”

Earlier this week, we announced one example of innovation in monetization and distribution with a new AdSense video test. We’ll be working with a wide set of content providers, grouping together high quality video content from providers with high quality ads and offering them as playlists which publishers can select from and display on their AdSense sites. (There’s more about the test on the AdSense blog.)

Today represents just the first step in our plan to bring you a comprehensive video search and content platform. We’ll provide ongoing updates as they unfold.

By loosely integrating the two sites, Google appears to be trying to leverage the strengths of each. Google also appears to be making a play to control the nascent Internet TV market, and its associated advertising opportunties.

via Official Google Blog

The LA Opera has committed to producing an additional fourteen episodes of its Behind the Curtain at the LA Opera podcast series, based on enthusiasm for the initial episodes. Listeners to the first 4 episodes, which featured an inside look at LA Opera’s Manon, outnumbered actual seats at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion by more than 5 to one in the first 4 weeks the shows were available online.

“The Behind the Curtain at the LA Opera podcast is a great opportunity for us to leverage new media marketing to build anticipation for our operas with young audiences, technophiles and opera fans around the world,” said Phil Koester, director of marketing, LA Opera. “We’re providing a rare and exciting look at how our productions come together, which whether you’re a lifelong patron or an aspiring aficionado, is a company first,” continued Koester.

Upcoming podcasts will feature episodes of podcasts for each of the LA Opera’s productions, including, Hansel and Gretel, The Coronation of Poppea, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Tannhauser, The Merry Widow, Porgy and Bess, and Luisa Fernanda.

Twentieth Century Fox has subpoenaed YouTube to reveal the identity of users who uploaded four episodes of the TV series “24” and twelve episodes of “The Simpsons,”.

From the subpoena:

On or about January 8, 2007, Fox became aware that a subscriber (“the Subscriber”) of YouTube Inc.s’ Internet-based service uploaded pirated copies of the works onto YouTube, making it available for illegal viewing over the Internet to anyone who wishes to watch it. Fox has not authorized this distribution or display of the works. The subpoena request YouTube, Inc. to disclose information sufficient to identify the Subscriber so that Fox can stop this infringing activity.

According to Jane Sunderland, vice president of content protection and anti-piracy for the Fox Entertainment Group, Fox has been unable to determine on their own who has been uploading the videos, and the uploaded videos are causing Fox irreparable harm.via Google Watch

Forbes has posted their take on the Web Celeb 25, a list of who they consider to be the biggest, brightest and most influential people on the Internet.

Their pick for the No. 1 Web Celeb?

Faux jailbait vlogger Lonelygirl15.

Vloggers and video podcasters are well-represented on the list. Other Internet videographers to make the cut include video blogger Amanda Congdon, political blogger (?) Robert Scoble, video blogger Hosea Frank (aka ZeFrank), podcaster Leo Laporte and sex educator Violet Blue.

GetData Software has introduced Recover My iPod, an¬†application designed to recover iPod music and video files that you don’t have backups for.

The program works on all iPod models and can recover a range of files, even after the Reset or Restore buttons have been activated at the wrong time.

Features:

• Recover music, video and photos: .m4a, .mp3, .mov, quicktime and jpeg file types from your iPod.
• Supports all iPods including: iPod, shuffle, iPod Mini, Nano and other iPod devices.
• Recovers data after an iPod Reset or Restore.
• Recover from iPod “Drive Not Formatted” message or when your iPod is not recognized by your computer.
• Recover My iPod will not change the contents of the iPod drive being searched.

“iPod owners should at least read the information about secure and safe use of their iPod on our site. It could save a lot of pain and heartache. And it would probably be a wise thing to download Recover My iPOD and have it available before what might be a fairly minor hitch becomes a costly disaster,” Mr. Henley added.

Recover My iPod retails from http://www.recovermyipod.com/ for US$39.95

Apple’s use of digital rights management (DRM) to control the use of downloads from iTunes is illegal, the Norway’s Consumer Ombudsman has ruled. The blow follows the news that consumer groups in Germany and France are joining Norway’s action against Apple.

“It doesn’t get any clearer than this. Fairplay is an illegal lock-in technology whose main purpose is to lock the consumers to the total package provided by Apple by blocking interoperability,” according to Torgeir Waterhouse, senior advisor at the Consumer Council. “For all practical purposes, this means that iTunes Music Store is trying to kill off one the most important building blocks in a well functioning digital society, interoperability, in order to boost its own profits.”

“iTunes Music Store must remove its illegal lock-in technology or appear in court,” he added. “As of right now we’re heading for a big breakthrough that will hopefully pave the way for consumers everywhere to regain control of music they legally purchase.”

There’s no¬†word yet¬†on whether or not Internet video fans are good looking or not, but a study by Nielsen Analytics and Scarborough Research has found that¬†Internet television attracts a young, educated and wealthy audience.

Even more promising for the future of Internet TV is the fact that offering shows via the Internet doesn’t cut into traditional television viewing, it increases it.

“The broadband consumer is really the sweet spot for TV — younger, more affluent, better educated and tech savvy,” said Larry Gerbrandt, general manager and senior vice president of Nielsen Analytics. “If you’re an advertiser, this is who you want to reach,” he added.