SQUIBLE – PC Pro School

Amazon is selling an array of TV shows from Fox and ABC for 99 cents, the same price Apple plans to charge for TV show rentals.

(Credit:
CNET)

As an eagle-eyed CNET reader noted, Amazon is selling some TV shows for the same price that Apple plans to charge for rentals.

A number of ABC and Fox shows, including hits like “Glee,” are available on Amazon’s service for 99 cents per episode–the same price as Apple’s coming rental option. But with Amazon, the episodes can be downloaded or streamed and do not expire.

Other shows, such as AMC’s Mad Men, still fetch $1.99 on Amazon’s site.

Here’s what Amazon says of the rights that come with videos sold on its site, including the 99-cent TV shows.

“When you buy a video, your viewing rights do not expire (except as provided in our Terms of Use),” Amazon states. “You can watch a video you own online and download it to 2 locations (TiVo, DVRs, and Windows PCs). You can also transfer a video you own to 2 portable devices. Note: Some new release movies will become unavailable for viewing or downloading for an unspecified period of time due to licensing restrictions. You will be notified about this before we process your order.”

While Amazon only offers downloads to Windows machines and TiVo boxes, purchased shows can be streamed on a wider array of devices, including Macs, PCs or TVs connected to compatible devices from, among others, Samsung, Vizio, Sony, Panasonic, and Roku.

Apple announced the 99-cent video rental option earlier on Wednesday. For now it is in the U.S. only and is limited to certain programs from Fox and ABC. Apple sells a much wider array of TV shows, typically charging $1.99 for standard-definition and $2.99 for HD episodes.

Microsoft plans to again sell a “family pack” of
Windows 7 that includes three copies of the Home Premium edition of the operating system.

(Credit:
Amazon.com)

Microsoft offered such a bundle when Windows 7 launched, but billed it as a limited-time offer. In less than two months, supplies had largely run out. The Windows 7 Family pack will go back on sale on Oct. 3 for a suggested price of $149.99. As before, the licenses are upgrade copies, meaning each computer already needs to be properly licensed for Windows XP or Windows Vista.

Once again, Microsoft is choosing to sell only a limited number of family packs.

“Don’t delay,” Microsoft said in a blog post Wednesday. “The Windows 7 Family Pack will be available soon while supplies last.”

Microsoft also plans to start selling the family pack again in many other places, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Australia, though places outside the U.S. will have to wait until at least Oct. 22.

I have to say, creating scarcity out of a resource as seemingly infinite as ones and zeros is an impressive marketing trick.

Apple has a similar option with
Mac OS X, though its bundle covers five computers in the same household and Apple has offered the option consistently since it first added it in 2002.

Matt Williams

(Credit:
eTail East conference)

Digg confirmed on Tuesday that it has named former Amazon executive Matt Williams as its next CEO, replacing Kevin Rose, who has been acting chief executive since Jay Adelson stepped down in April.

“After several months of searching, we are excited to announce that Matt Williams will become the CEO of Digg,” Rose said in a blog post. “As you know, I have been the interim CEO, while we looked for the right person, and I will still remain actively involved in the product, but am handing over the day-to-day running of the business to Matt.”

Williams has been at Amazon for the past 11 years, ever since the company acquired LiveBid.com, which Williams founded and served as chief executive. Most recently, Williams was general manager for consumer payments at Amazon.

He takes the helm of Digg as the company works to navigate through a controversial new version of its namesake site, a fact Rose acknowledged in his blog post.

“I know it has been a wild past week since the launch of our new platform,” Rose said. “Introducing change is never easy, and bringing something as radically different as Digg version 4 was bound to generate a strong reaction. We are absolutely listening and really value everyone’s feedback as we take Digg in new directions.”

Rose said last week that the company plans a number of big fixes and tweaks to the revamped site.

As for Williams, he said in the blog that he believes in the potential of Digg’s latest rework. “There is so much innovation yet to come–being the best in the world at curating news means solving the information overload we all experience every day,” he said. “The Digg team has already made great strides in this direction and there is much more ahead.”

Microsoft and Yahoo say they are moving forward with their effort to transition search advertisers to Redmond’s set of search ad tools.

Beginning Tuesday, Yahoo advertisers can begin migrating their campaigns to Microsoft’s AdCenter, though users will still need to use both Yahoo and Microsoft tools for a while longer. The companies hope to start the shift of Yahoo ads to AdCenter in mid-October and complete the shift by the end of that month.

However, the two companies continue to give themselves wiggle room on the date.

“Microsoft and Yahoo will continue to seek input from advertisers as we work to complete the transition,” Microsoft general manager David Pann said in a blog post. “While we expect the paid search transition to be complete by the end of October, and we are on track to reach that goal, we still may consider holding off on the full integration of paid search until 2011 if we feel that the transition will in any way impact the holiday season.”

For its part, Yahoo has several tools for advertisers on its Web site, including a feature comparison, transition checklist, and a somewhat ominous sounding “compatibility report” generator.

“We recommend that you review your Compatibility Report, and fix incompatibilities between your current Yahoo campaigns and the AdCenter platform before starting the transition to AdCenter,” Yahoo said on its blog.

Last week, Yahoo completed its move to use Bing to power its algorithmic search results in the U.S. and Canada. The move to use Bing results and Microsoft-powered ad tools is part of a 10-year deal aimed at joining forces to gain more bulk against the overwhelming market leader, Google.

Even with the combination, the two have less than half as much market share as Google. The two companies continue to refer to their combined market share as 31 percent, although the latest ComScore numbers put that figure closer to 28 percent.