Also: Kodak to sell patents for fraction of worth; Twitter lets you download all your Tweets.
Verizon’s Redbox Instant launches in private beta: Unlimited Streaming, 4 DVD credits a month [THE NEXT WEB]
Redbox Instant is launching at an $8 per-month subscription price, in direct competition with Netflix’s streaming services. Its unclear as to how many streaming deals have already been secured by Redbox, but we do know that titles from EPIX will be included.
As we’ve previously detailed, Redbox Instant will be available online via your browser, as well as on iOS, Android, Samsung Blu-ray Players and TVs with SmartHub, LG Smart TV and Google TV. Additional devices will be announced over time.
I’m not the product, but I play on one on the Internet [DEREK POWAZEK]
The “you are the product” line is most often repeated when a company that provides a free service does something that people don’t like. See Instagram’s recent terms change or any Facebook design update. The subtext is, this company does not serve you, you don’t pay for it, so shut up already.
But that’s crazy talk. If a company shows that they’re not treating you or your work with respect, vote with your feet. Uninstall. Delete account. Walk! And make sure they know why you split. It’s the only way we have to make companies feel the repercussions of dumb, user-hostile decisions.
Web retailers scrap for last-hour sales [THE WALL STREET JOURNAL]
This year, GSI’s customers will let shoppers order as late as 11 p.m. Eastern time on Dec. 22 and still get their orders by Christmas Eve. That’s eight more hours than shoppers get on Amazon.com Inc., AMZN -0.93% which cuts off Christmas sales at 3 p.m., and an hour later than GSI’s deadline last year.
That extra hour will account for about 10% of all sales handled by GSI on Dec. 22, said Tobias Hartmann, chief executive of global operations.
Kodak to sell patents for $525 million [THE NEW YORK TIMES]
On Wednesday, the sale was finally announced, but instead of bringing as much as $2.6 billion as Kodak once predicted, the selling price was far short of that amount, at about $525 million. The buyer was a consortium that includes many of the world’s biggest technology firms, among them Apple, Google, Facebook and Samsung Electronics.
Kodak officials said the sale was another crucial step toward emerging from bankruptcy, and turning around a decades-long slide for the Rochester-based corporation.
Twitter confirms ‘Download your Tweet archive” feature is being rolled out — “slowly” [TECHCRUNCH]
“Today, we’re introducing the ability to download your Twitter archive, so you’ll get all your Tweets (including Retweets) going back to the beginning. Once you have your Twitter archive, you can view your Tweets by month, or search your archive to find Tweets with certain words, phrases, hashtags or @usernames. You can even engage with your old Tweets just as you would with current ones.”
eBay to stop advertising inside apps: “It’s not worth it.” [ALL THINGS D]
This year, eBay displayed ads inside of its iPhone app as an experiment, but found that they were distracting and cluttered up the smaller screens. The ads also didn’t deliver meaningful revenue.
“It’s not worth it,” Wenig added.
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