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Lycos Cinema has expanded to include Video on Demand (VOD). Previously the social video platform supported ad-supported video.

“Our experience shows us that while film and TV fans welcome the increasing availability to view premium content online, they also desire the social interaction that is inherent in today’s web as part of their viewing experience,” said Chuck Ball, vice president of sales and marketing for Lycos. “By enabling users to watch the same program at the same time, Lycos Cinema gives users a unique viewing experience they cannot find anywhere else.”

All new Lycos Cinema features now include:

• 4 key viewing modes
• Thousands of free VOD and VOD Rental titles
• Lobby chat accommodating thousands of users
• Easy to use scheduling & invite functionality with automatic
• Notification features
• Clip & ship widget functions
• Time-stamped comments
• Full buddy list import-ability to invite AIM buddies to join viewing

Rating and recommendations

• Online movie rentals streamed in H.264/MPEG-4 for higher quality
• Viewing
• ‘Watchlist’ functionality to keep track of favorites

Related Reading:
Lycos Jumps Into the Social Mix

Dr. Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist and occasional Freakonomics Blog guest blogger, posted “Why data matters” on the official Google blog, cross-posted on the Google Public Policy Blog.

Varian explains that Web search algorithms are improved by the “wisdom of the crowds” drawn from the “logs of billions of previous search queries.” That makes the general public - and government officials - nervous about privacy.

Varian tutors us in PageRank simplified and discusses link building in an ideal world - one where The New York Times and The Wall St. Journal, for example, would link to other sites generously:

“If I have six links pointing to me from sites such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the House of Representatives, that carries more weight than 20 links from my old college buddies who happen to have web pages.”

The House of Representatives? Sounds more like Charlie Wilson’s War.

SEOs, contact your local Congressional Representative for paid links - paid for with your hard-earned tax dollars.

The reality: when Dr. Varian was interviewed, The New York Times Freakonomics Blog linked to Google.org, Google green energy, Dr. Varian’s position auction paper (pdf); BBC News on Moore’s Law; Paul Seabright (Professor of Economics, University of Toulouse, France); Dr. Varian’s NY Times energy article; another Freakonomics blog post; WebMD, Revolution Health, and Paul Anderson, Professor of Security Engineering, University of Cambridge.

That’s the way major media outlets and journalists typically link: to each other; to corporate sites; to universities. It’s an elite, exclusive club. Nick Carr’s “digital elite.”

That isn’t to say Dr. Varian can’t tell a good story. He reveals how Larry and Sergey trying to license their PageRank algorithm to “some of the newly formed web search engines.”

No names named. None of the nascent search engines were interested. Since they couldn’t sell their algorithm, Brin and Page decided to start a search engine themselves. (Note to VCs: Don’t try this business model at home.)

Google has since added more than 200 additional “signals” to the algorithms that determine the relevance of websites to a user’s query. We are the signals.

All the background info leads to one conclusion: Google needs your data. Google wants you to take a leap of faith. Google must store and analyze search logs. They want us to believe, “Nobody does it better.”

Reminds me of Radiohead via Carly Simon:

“But like heaven above me, the spy who loved me/Is keeping all my secrets safe tonight. And nobody does it better/Sometimes I wish someone would/Nobody does it quite the way you do/Why’d you have to be so good.”

Dr. Varian suggests readers “Watch our videos to see exactly what data we store in our logs.”

Not everyone has time - or the inclination - to watch Google videos on YouTube.

What worries me: Google doesn’t understand us any better than we understand the mathematical formulas of search engine algorithms.

Search Engine WarGames won’t be fought between humans and machines.

Nick Carr put it best: “The erosion of the middle class may well accelerate, as the divide widens between a relatively small group of extraordinarily wealthy people - the digital elite - and a very large set of people who face eroding fortunes and a persistent struggle to make ends meet. In the YouTube economy, everyone is free to play, but only a few reap the rewards.”

Want a snapshot of the day’s search marketing news? Here we’ve collected today’s top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:
From the SEW Blog:

Search Engine Optimization 2008: Silence of the Lambs?Mike Grehan says that SEO is stuck in a time warp and not keeping up [...]

New Article - Global Marketing Solutions for Local Businesses Posted By : Henal Patel:.. http://tinyurl.com/yqw7lc #
Hot Fuels For Fast Cars Posted By :: Men have been experimenting with weird fuel concoctions since .. http://tinyurl.com/3cf3×2 #
Minimizing Wrinkles Posted By :: Okay, ladies, lets face it, no one wants them, even though we know.. http://tinyurl.com/38y6ju #
Intelliflix The [...]

During last night’s 60 Minutes segment on Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg set up Lesley Stahl’s profile — and an old colleague reached out quickly to her delight. Thus one of the major benefits cited was finding all your lost buddies or colleagues.
Yet I don’t believe that people-search is the key strength of Facebook, until [...]

Christmas isn’t even here yet and the social networking giants Facebook and MySpace are already focusing on Valentine’s Day. MySpace will introduce members to a pickup artist, while Facebookers get access Match.com’s Little Black Book, both in efforts to help members’ love lives.
You remember in college when you had a large circle of male and [...]

When I was in the tenth grade, before anybody’d heard of the Internet except this geek buddy of mine and the geek buddies of his that he connected with like Matthew Broderick did in that movie by plugging his phone into this contraption (this buddy of mine now works for the NSA by the way), [...]

What people reveal…depends on the venue. When you attend a family gathering, your discussion is surely different than among business colleagues. The updates you share at college reunions would be different than your chats with daily running buddies. Likewise, your communications on social sites seem to vary too.
Click to read the rest [...]

Just try to read this without feeling like you’re sitting in the back of the classroom, snickering with your buddies at the slightest hint of double entendre – you know, she said jacket, heh heh.
 

It’s bad enough this story involves virtual sex and real fake money, but add in that "Stroker" is suing an [...]

The Internet company’s continued efforts at addressing environmental concerns received a positive mark from the Climate Counts project.When it comes to heightening awareness of climate change, Yahoo has been a big backer of the cause. They recently picked up an acknowledgment of how well the company has taken the message to heart in its operations.
The [...]