Point 82: Marketing Tech News Roundup 8/16-8/20

Where are you right now? Tell us. We promise, we’ll only tell 500 million people.

OK, we really don’t want to know (or tell 500 people), but Facebook does. We know, we know, we promised we wouldn’t always talk about Facebook. But they started it with this Places nonsense.

In our latest marketing technology news roundup, we ask if  “You’ve Got Content! ,” our passive-aggressive relationship with technology, how Hulu is growing up, and why it’s a good idea to be nice to your co-workers.

Here are our picks for the week:

AOL CEO Armstrong Aims For 500 News Websites In Local-Ad Bet
AOL is betting on Patch, the biggest network of neighborhood blogs in the country, to take the company to the promised land. The content play is purely for advertising revenue and the company hopes to quadruple the blog network in size. You’ve got content!

Facebook adds Places. This will not end well.
Sometimes we wonder if Facebook plays the tape all the way through, so to speak. Why on earth would anyone want someone else to tag them at a location? There are so many reasons why this will be an epic fail for privacy, but probably and epic win for data and targeting. We aren’t welcoming our Big Brother overloads just yet.

Hulu looking to launch IPO
Video site Hulu is dancing towards an IPO as a way to build capital and therefore increase their content hoard. Hulu, owned by Disney, NBC Universal and News Corp, has a fairly large stable of shows but it’s obvious as the site goes to a pay model, wants more.

Time Inc. breaks the iPad logjam
Finally. Subscribers to Time Inc. publications will soon be able to view iPad version of their magazines for free. Previously, the iPad versions of many mags was the same price as the newsstand, even for subscribers. Thankfully, our long, national nightmare is over. But seriously, Steve Jobs, what was the hold up on this?

Skype Chief Development Officer Gets Commented Under the Bus
In the same week it was leaked the Skype was filing for it’s own IPO, and only a month after he started, chief development officer Madhu Yarlagadda announced he was leaving the company. The reason? An “onslaught of negative comments” against Yarlagadda on a TechCrunch post announcing his new position. We’re not big fans of the newsmakers making the news, but this was too grand a show not to share. Lesson learned.

As always, If you’re behind on the news, be sure to check out last week’s Point 82 , and don’t forget to read our blog next Friday, when we hope to be Facebook free.

Flickr photo courtesy of St_A_Sh