Earlier in the day, we reported that all of the Beatles’ music was going to be made available via a series of podcasts from Norway. 

It turns out, the Norwegian Beatles podcast is one podcast you won’t be listening to Here, There and Everywhere. 

According to the government-run Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), the Beatles podcast was yanked because of licensing agreements:

The Beatles comes under our agreement with IFPI, which says that we only can put up shows for download that were aired the latest four weeks, and where the music is less than 70% of the show’s length.

“Our daily Beatles” were aired in 2007 (not 2001 as we wrote yesterday), so we have to pull the podcast. If it was aired today, we could have podcasted the next four weeks within the agreement.

So why not send the show again on one of your channels?
This is a question people have asked several times already. We could have done it, but choose not to.

It’s unclear why the NRK said Come And Get It, Free As A Bird, without doing Every Little Thing that their licensing agreements require. 

We’re guessing somebody at the NRK, though, is saying “I Should Have Known Better!”

Parnassus Group (and a bunch of sponsors) will be hosting the third annual “It Won’t Stay In Vegas” party during CES, Friday, January 9, at the Atomic Testing Museum.  Promoters tout the attendance by and participation of Robert Scoble, as well as Gary Vaynerchuk, and Andru Edwards.

Say the party organizers: “Gary Vaynerchuk has picked out some great wine for the attendees,… and Sony is hosting a game lounge, with comfy seating and plenty of room for people to play all kinds of games on a single console, over a local LAN, or against the rest of the world on Sony¹s PlayStation Network (PSN).”

Party invitations are available to bloggers attending CES “who host a focused, editorially independent (non-vendor) blog and cover the tech or gadget space.” Ask for an invite here.

Do you want to know a secret?

Do you promise not to tell?

Beatles music is, for the first time, available for download in a podcast from Norwegian Broadcasting.

[This of course begs some dumb puns about Norwegian Wood. Isn’t it good? But we digress.]

Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) made a 2007 documentary series on “Norgesglasset” radio, which explored “the background and history” of all 212 Beatles songs. The documentary has been re-released this week as The Daily Beatles Podcast. (or Var Daglige Beatles Podkast, if you want to be really cool).

The remaining Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, have been famously reluctant to offer their Beatles catalog for download, despite lucrative offers to do so.

Perhaps you’re saying, “You Can’t Do That.” (Bear with me, even as the song-title puns begin to wear thin). Well, apparently Norwegian podcasters can. A recent agreement with the Norwegian music rights-holders TONO, allows NRK to “podcast previously broadcasted[sic] radioshows containing less than 70 percent music.”

The Daily Beatles podcast keeps to the “less-than-seventy-percent” rule, with a three-minute discussion of the song, followed by the tune itself.

The podcasts containing music are available for four weeks from publishing date.

Beatles are on a podcast and I Feel Fine. Dig It.

The Daily Beatles Podcast feed is right here.

P.S. What do *you* think is the greatest Beatles song? Which album is the best?

comScore today released November 2008 data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that U.S. Internet users viewed 12.7 billion online videos during the month, representing an increase of 34 percent versus year ago.

77% of all Americans on the Internet watch online video, an average of 273 minutes per person for the month.

Other notable findings:

• 97 million viewers watched 5.1 billion videos on YouTube.com (52.3 videos per viewer).
• 52.5 million viewers watched 371 million videos on MySpace.com (7.1 videos per viewer).
• The duration of the average online video was 3.1 minutes.
• The duration of the average online video viewed at Hulu was 11.9 minutes, higher than any other video property in the top ten.

Hulu Retains #6 Ranking

In November, Google Sites once again ranked as the top U.S. video property with nearly 5.1 billion videos viewed (representing a 40 percent share of all videos viewed), with YouTube.com accounting for more than 98 percent of all videos viewed at the property. Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 439 million videos (3.5 percent), followed by Viacom Digital with 325 million (2.6 percent) and Yahoo! Sites with 304 million (2.4 percent). On the heels of a surge in viewership in October, Hulu retained its #6 position with 227 million videos viewed (1.8 percent).

SlingMedia has announced a version of SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone being developed for the iTunes store at this year’s Macworld.

Sling Media plans to deliver a version of SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone to Apple for certification in Q1.

SlingMedia is also unveiling a prototype of the new SlingPlayer for Mac HD which allows Slingbox PRO-HD users to stream HD content to their Macdesktop or laptop computer. The new SlingPlayer for Mac HD is a web-based version of the SlingPlayer software that will be accessible from Sling.com. 

“SlingPlayer Mobile is ideally suited for the iPhone’s large touch screen display and I know iPhone users are eagerly anticipating the application’s availability,” said Blake Krikorian, co-founder and CEO of Sling Media. “Add to that HD streaming support for Slingbox PRO-HD customers and live TV support on our video entertainment site, Sling.com, and you can see Sling Media is committed to delivering great solutions for Mac users.”

Pricing and Availability

SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone will be submitted to Apple for testing and approval in Q1. It will be compatible with the iPhone and iPod Touch. The price has not been determined at this time. SlingPlayer for Mac HD will be available for free via the web-based SlingPlayer within Sling.com later in Q1. Mac customers will be able to use either Safari or Firefox web browsers to get both HD streaming and Live TV within Sling.com.

The Cleveland Leader, a competitor of grand old newspaper stalwart, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, reports that the Plain Dealer is considering renting out downtown office and parking space — space no longer needed due to “staff reductions.”

The Leader claims that Plain Dealer employees received a memo Monday about leasing space in its newly-constructed building to prospective tenants. The Leader says that the employee memo reassures workers that “there will continue to be plenty of cost-effective, secure parking available to you, as well as the continuation of a wonderful work environment at our Superior Ave. facility.”

In its own article about the proposed cost-saving measures, the Plain Dealer also discloses that it will be looking for a buyer for a 50-acre parcel of land near its recently-built printing and distribution facility.

The newspaper industry is in the midst of a dramatically-shrinking circulation, as readers seek more up-to-the-moment news coverage from online outlets. Advertising revenues for traditional media are likewise declining, and newspapers and magazines are scrambling to cover expenses while trying to find a business model that will work in this new media age. Even the venerable New York Times, which last month staked its headquarters building as collateral for a $250 million operating loan, today began (gasp!) running advertising on its previously pristine front page.

Image: Thomas Claveirole

William R. Patterson, financial advisor, author and host of the XM Radio show “The Power,” talks about the correlation between debt and depression (the emotional kind, not the economic kind) with host Bill Grady in the current episode of the You Are The Guest podcast.

Much of the conversation is common-sense (i.e., anyone reading the news today can discern that personal financial difficulties would exacerbate other already-stressful situations), but on this, the most stressful day of the calendar year, this podcast episode seems especially timely.

The You Are The Guest podcast features interviews with a diverse bunch of personalities and experts, ranging from politicians and spiritual counselors to musicians and investigative journalists. The feed for the podcast is found here.

Online retailer Amazon.com announced today that its 40,000-item library of movies and television programs will now be available via the Roku digital video player. Previously, the $99 device only supported streaming video rentals from Netflix.

According to the Roku website, “Rentals [from Amazon] are available in prices ranging from 99 cents to $3.99, for a 24 hour viewing window. Purchased movies and TV shows are kept in the Amazon VOD ‘your video library’ for easy access from a PC, Mac, or TV. ”

Roku fans seem very happy about the Amazon/Roku announcement.

Consumers are increasingly getting their news and entertainment online, and devices like the Roku player and Apple TV (among others), and services like Hulu, Netflix, and Boxee make accessing online media simple. As these devices become ubiquitous, the entertainment industry landscape changes rapidly and dramatically.  Will there be bricks-and-mortar movie rental stores five years from now?

Om Malik has been writing for years about emerging technology and the people who shape the tech landscape. Malik used to be a writer at Business 2.0, and founded the GigaOm Network, (a technology blog and organizer of tech conferences like New Tee Vee).

And despite being a long-respected authority on new technologies and new mass media, it wasn’t until this week that Malik and Co. launched a regular podcast. It is a welcome (though perhaps not groundbreaking) addition to the tech podcast landscape.

Informal, short, and sweet, the podcast features Om and other bloggers talking about such topics as Google’s Android, CES and MacWorld, and whether “VoIP isn’t dead, it’s just stale.” It’s a welcome addition to the other opinion and analysis posts on the site.

The feed is the same as the main blog RSS.

Adobe Systems and Intel Corporation today announced plans to port Adobe Flash technology for the Intel Media Processor CE 3100, in order to provide Flash-based Internet video viewing through Intel-based cable set-top boxes, Blu-ray Disc players, digital TVs and retail connected AV devices. Intel and Adobe are working together to optimize both the Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Flash Lite for the CE3100.

Intel plans to ship the first CE3100 with support for an optimized implementation of Adobe Flash Lite before mid-2009.

Intel and Adobe are members of the Open Screen Project – an initiative dedicated to putting Adobe AIR and Adobe Flash content, standalone applications and full Web browsing across televisions, set-top boxes, mobile devices and other consumer electronics.