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YouTube has been working on a movie rental system for some time and the Google-owned video sharing company may soon be getting some Hollywood backing.

Google is negotiating with some major Hollywood studios to stream movies and television content through YouTube via a pay-per-view model.  The Financial Times reports that they want to get this streaming by the end of the year. Movies would stream for about $5 each.

This would put Google in competition, once again, with Apple as well as with already-established movie streaming and rental services like Netflix, Hulu, and others.  AppleTV (which will probably separate from iTunes as a brand) is working on a new-generation of digital video service while Netflix just penned a $1 billion agreement with Paramount, Lionsgate, and MGM.  Meanwhile, Hulu (owned by Disney, News Corp, and Universal) is going public at a possible IPO valuation of $2 billion.

Earlier this year, during the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, YouTube ran a pilot program with five movies playing at the festival being available as rentals on the site. While not financially a success, the pilot did show that it could be done and made it obvious to many that premier movies might mean more money.

Google’s largest advantage in this game would be potential viewership numbers.  Since Google drives more traffic than any other Internet site and since the video-on-demand/rental game online is still relatively new, Google could potentially grab a large chunk of the market.  With the ability to push search traffic plus the traffic on the world’s most-used video sharing site, Google definitely has a leg up.

Many have not heard of a Tumblelog while others can’t get enough of them. The hybrid microblog/social media sharing site is gaining popularity fast. Currently, it’s growth and userbase is about what Twitter’s was two years ago.

Tumblr’s biggest stumblr block (couldn’t help myself) is Google. The search giant doesn’t seem to think that Tumblelogs, which have everything most SEO experts say Google wants in a blog, are worth ranking well.

Tumblelogs are usually small posts with a lot of backlinks and content pulled from others Tumblr and regular blog RSS entries combined with commentary and notes by the Tumblelog owner doing the posting. Normally, it’s the kind of content (backlinks and new content) that Google loves to bolster.

Not so with Tumblr, it seems.

The simplicity that’s created huge popularity with Tumblr users is exactly what Google and other search engines, apparently, don’t like about it. It’s “too easy” it appears.

So Tumblelogs tend to rank low in Google results and some are crying foul, saying that it’s not based on Google’s algorithm but purely on domain name bashing. You see, all Tumbelogs are hosted on Tumblr itself, whether they are privately owned URLs or subdomains of Tumblr. This is similar to the way Google’s own Blogger works.

Yet with Tumblr, it doesn’t appear these subdomains are being given credit for being their own site – as Google is believed to do with other sites, including its own Blogger.

This and other apparent discrimination has Tumblr fans up in arms. As Soshable’s JD Rucker points out, though, it’s all about how you plan to use the site. If you use it purely as an SEO platform, there are better choices out there that aren’t on Google’s radar.

Tumblr is, ultimately, a social networking site focused on sharing content (either directly or by posting links).  For that, it’s near-perfect.

Google Ventures, the venture capital side of Google has put money into the developer of iPad and iPhone games, ngmoco.
ngmoco has a number of very popular gaming apps with one of its most popular being ‘We Farm’, currently the second most popular app on the iPad. TechCrunch figures that the investment is between $3 million and $5 million which values the company at almost $100 million.

The investment is made by Google Ventures which, company reps say, is completely distinct from Google itself. Google has made several investments in gaming developers so far, including Zygna as well as Slide.

That said it is unlikely that the decision was made purely on investment grounds, considering the importance Google places on its Android platform. In all likelihood ngmoco will soon be developing a number of games for the Android platform.

Currently Android has fairly few quality gaming application available so there is definitely room for Google Ventures’ new acquisition to develop games for the Android. However it is possible that ngmoco may offend its current host Apple should it go ahead to port its popular games to Android. Of course Apple should not let such a decision interfere with the approval process but this may or may not become a problem.

Ngmoco is short for Next Generation Mobile COmpany. The company is run by Neil Young, a former executive from major games developer Electronic Arts. Bing Gordon, also an Electronic Arts veteran and currently partner Kleiner Perkins also sits on the board.

CloudCrowd is trying to bring labour into the cloud by utilising a vast network of workers across the world in a way similar to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and CrowdFlower. So far CloudCrowd has 25,000 individual workers who at this early stage already completed over a million tasks since the site’s launch in October 2009.

The start-up has now raised a second round of $5.1 million in funding, having already raised $1.5 million. The latest round of funding involves DFJ as well as the start-up’s founder and CEO Alex Edelstein.

Most of the work completed on CloudCrowd is driven by client tasks where a company requests a task to be completed to CloudCrowd which then farms out the job to workers that are eligible. As with Amazon’s service the tasks can be as simple as examining the quality of an image or as advanced as translating entire web pages.

When a task is completed a different user checks the work to give an additional level of quality control. Completed tasks earn workers a credibility rating: as a worker builds their credibility rating they are assigned increasingly complex tasks.

The company also has a business that carries out work for consumers. The site, called EditZen, allows users to submit pages to be edited for $4 per page and the company plans to launch TranslationZen soon.

With two major established competitors in the market CloudCrowd will need to offer a substantially attractive service but, as this market is still expanding, CloudCrowd definitely has a lot of room to grow.

In a move that seems to be confusing many in the blogosphere, Google has moved to purchase visual search engine Like.com (which has search tools and several properties) for a reported $100 million.  TechCrunch broke the story followed by several others who jumped in to put in their two cents.

Here’s mine.

The main reason Google would buy a property like Like.com is solely for the patents.  Google has experimented with visual search in the past, as have a lot of other companies.  It turns out, though, Like.com has a patent on using visual search in e-commerce.  They’ve actively enforced that patent against startups in the past, such as the now-defunct Modista.

In the industry, buying a company merely to get their patents is called a “land grab.”  It’s common practice and, in the case of many “paper only” startups (which Like.com doesn’t appear to be), it’s their sole reason for existence.  A paper-only startup is one that exists merely to own and enforce a patent.  They’ll start the company with some idea, but instead of creating technology around it (beyond a rudimentary level, in order to qualify for a patent), they’ll instead file for a patent and carry that along as their sole reason for being, using it to bash all those who infringe upon it.

As I said, Like.com appears to have been really using their technology, however.  They have several properties that surround the Like.com core and its visual search, embedding themselves in nearly every type of ecommerce out there.  While none of their sites are popular, they are all legitimate.

So it’s obvious to me that Google purchased a patent here, not a visual search algorithm.  Given their investment in Pixazza, it’s even more obvious that this is what they’re doing.

Although the rumor circulates every year, just like the “Internet sales tax” and the “post office to tax email” rumors always do, this time, the iPhone showing up on a carrier other than AT&T may have some truth to it.  Verizon uses CDMA as its backbone for communications – their chipsets made by Qualcomm.  AT&T does not use CDMA and Apple, up to now, has never ordered or had use for the chipset either (they use Infineon’s).

So if Apple were to begin purchasing large numbers of CDMA chipsets from Qualcomm, it would seem obvious that they are probably planning a non-AT&T venture.  Given the exclusivity contract with AT&T that’s due to run out later this year, the rumors can really fly.  TechCrunch has an inside line saying that Apple has indeed ordered several million CDMA chips from Qualcomm.

Further, they say that the orders are for an iPhone run to be out on the market sometime in December or January.

More dirt on this possible iPhone for Verizon launch in January comes from MacRumors, who points to various reports on the matter as well as AT&T’s apparent moves to downplay the negative impact a non-exclusive iPhone on their network might mean.

TechCrunch comments and Gizmodo both also point out that CDMA could also mean a Sprint release of the iPhone.  So it could be both, either, or none.  The rumors, however, sure are beginning to solidify with all of this semi-circumstantial evidence coming together to show a likely non-AT&T iPhone coming soon.