The four new channels are Alli Sports, Network A, Red Bull Channel and RIDE. Here’s how Youtube describes them:

Alli Sports: Whether you want tips from your favorite athlete on how to pull off their signature trick, a behind the curtain look into the lives of the biggest and fastest rising stars in the sports, or news and highlights from the industries most insightful analysts, The Alli Show, Step by Step, Inside AlliSports, AWSM on Alli and Frends Crew, are just a few of the shows on Alli Sports that will keep you up to speed on the latest and greatest moves and news in the industry.

Network A: Network A shares some of the most amazing performances and personalities in the history of action sports. Want to see the best tricks and segments from pros like Paul Rodriguez, Ryan Sheckler, Shaun White and Kelly Slater? You’ve come to the right place. In the coming weeks, new shows, new Channels, and an unprecedented level of access to action sports pros will be added.

Red Bull: The Red Bull Channel is bringing 13 new original episodic series that will chronicle the competition and daily lives of the world’s best action sports athletes including urban mountain biker and YouTube celebrity, Danny MacAskill, skateboarding pro Ryan Sheckler, action sports phenom Travis Pastrana and big wave surfer Jamie O’Brien. You’ll also be able to find new episodes of other popular series starting with the first episode of Livin’ Louie Vito that explores the life of professional snowboarder Louie Vito.

RIDE: Brought to you by Tony Hawk, RIDE is a 24-hour Channel devoted to the skateboarding lifestyle that will feature Hawk, Skatepark of Tampa, Jamie Thomas and Lance Krall among others. On “Tony Hawk’s Dissent,” subscribers will have behind-the-scenes access as Tony hangs out with different celebrities. Viewers can also get into the game with shows like “Shredit Cards,” where skaters upload their own skate videos and earn shopping passes based on the degree of difficulty and “One in a Million,” where amateur skateboarders will compete to become sponsored.

In the fall of 2011, YouTube announced that they would be expanding their channels by bringing in well-known personalities from various fields like music, sports, film, and comedy.

December’s homepage redesign put more emphasis on channels and made it easy for users to subscribe to their favorite content streams.

On Tuesday, YouTube announced a couple of new entertainment channels (Entertainment News TV & The Young Hollywood Network).

If you were looking to purchase a year’s subscription to one of the most venerable newspapers in the country and have yet to purchase the device on which to read it, you’re in luck. Barnes & Noble is giving a free Nook Touch to anyone who purchases 1 year of the New York Times.

That subscription will run you $19.99 a month.

Doing the math here, that means that you’ll be paying roughly $240 for the year of the Times. The Nook Touch’s standard price is $99. A free Nook is a sweet deal, but in order to really feel like you’re saving on this promotion, you probably have to have already wanted a NYT subscription.

If you feel like upgrading, you can also snag the Nook Color for $99 with the purchase of the subscription. That’s $100 of the original price.

“We are excited to work with The New York Times to present this unique offer that, for the first time ever, gives readers a chance to get a one-year subscription to our top-selling digital newspaper with an award-winning NOOK Simple Touch at no cost, or a NOOK Color at a $100 savings,” said Jonathan Shar, vice president and general manager of digital newsstand at Barnes & Noble. “Our customers love to have their newspaper automatically delivered to their NOOK device each morning, ready to read anytime and anywhere.”

If celebrity gossip is more your thing, you can also buy a 1-year subscription to People and you will be rewarded with $50 off the Nook Tablet, which will shoot the price down to $199. The People subscription win cost you $9.99 a month.

In just a week, Spotify will turn 6 months old in the U.S., and that will bring on some new limitations.

When it’s over, users who are only singed up for the free version of Spotify will be limited to just 10 hours a month of streaming music. Individual tracks will also carry a 5-play limit per month. The ad-supported free version of the service is about to limit you so much that you’ll be forced to sign up for one of their paid subscriptions.

Those options are the $4.99 Unlimited package that has no advertisements and no time limits on streaming; and the Premium package that has all of this but also offers offline playback and mobile functionality via the Spotify app. The Premium package also boast enhanced sound quality on all tracks as well as exclusive content offers.

According to Business Insider, some users have already began to receive notices that they are about to see some changes. Logging into Spotify also gives you the “upgrade” option in the top right corner that takes you to a page where you can easily switch to a paid subscription.

Here’s a statement from a Spotify spokesperson:

All new Spotify users – both in the US and in all other countries in which Spotify is available – are able to enjoy an unlimited free service for their first six months. As we have previously stated, after a Spotify user has enjoyed free unlimited listening for six months, some changes to the free service will come into effect. We will have more information on these changes in due course. Spotify Premium and Spotify Unlimited remain unaffected.

So new Spotify customers will still be able to access the six-month run of unlimited service for free, but for those who jumped on board right as Spotify came to the States, it looks like the time has come. Will you pay for Spotify Unlimited or Premium? Let us know in the comments.

The rumors have spread in various ways across the network: Maybe you’ve seen the group “If 1 million people join before “whatever/whatever,” then Facebook remains free.” Or possibly “If this page gets 30,000 likes, you won’t have to pay to use Facebook.” These falsities have spread like wildfire over the course of the last few years.

One particular hoax message popped up over the weekend and is making its way around the community. Many of you might have seen one of your friends post the following message, or something quite similar -

FACEBOOK JUST RELEASED THEIR PRICE GRID FOR MEMBERSHIP. $9.99 PER MONTH FOR GOLD MEMBER SERVICES, $6.99 PER MONTH FOR SILVER MEMBER SERVICES, $3.99 PER MONTH FOR BRONZE MEMBER SERVICES, FREE IF YOU COPY AND PASTE THIS MESSAGE BEFORE MIDNIGHT TONIGHT. WHEN YOU SIGN ON TOMORROW MORNING YOU WILL BE PROMPTED FOR PAYMENT INFO…IT IS OFFICIAL IT WAS EVEN ON THE NEWS. FACEBOOK WILL START CHARGING DUE TO THE NEW PROFILE CHANGES. IF YOU COPY THIS ON YOUR WALL YOUR ICON WILL TURN BLUE AND FACEBOOK WILL BE FREE FOR YOU. PLEASE PASS THIS MESSAGE ON IF NOT YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE DELETED IF YOU DO NOT PAY

And yes, the message is in all caps – that’s how you know it’s for real. Plus, the news said it, so…

The reason that this chain letter style hoax status is spreading so rapidly is probably due to all of Facebook’s implemented and announced changes. When Facebook starts messing with stuff, gullibility rises.

The bottom line is that Facebook isn’t going to start charging you tomorrow, and they aren’t going to in the future either. Facebook execs have been getting this point out there for years. Plus, there’s this whole thing, right when you sign in -

Plus, Facebook’s whole business model revolves around bringing in as many users as possible and then making money through advertising.

Facebook isn’t implementing a pricing plan. So please let your friends know this. My “top stories” part of my new News feed can’t handle all the caps.

No Netflix member is limited to less than two concurrent streams. A few Netflix members have heard differently from us, which is an error that we are correcting.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: On September 1st, those pesky Netflix price changes went into effect, changing the popular $9.99 streaming + one-DVD-at-a-time plan into two separate, $7.99 plans – ultimately upping the price $6 for the same service.

On that same day they announced the end of their deal with Starz, as negotiations to renew the old 2008 contract failed. This means that in February, Netflix will lose all of its Starz new releases from people like Sony and Walt Disney – as well as the Starz Play streaming content, all of which accounts for about 8% of viewed content according to CEO Reed Hastings.

And as the first week in September comes to a close, Netflix has done something else to likely piss off their subscribers.

Netflix is cracking down on the sharing of memberships, disallowing multiple streams from the same account.

Of course, Netflix has always said that it’s against the rules to stream different content to different devices at the same time with only one streaming plan – but they never really stopped anyone from doing it. I could always login to my account via my Xbox and watch something while someone else used my account to watch something different from their computer.

But apparently, multiple streamers are now receiving this message when logging in to the same account –

If this crack down holds up, that means people wanting to stream more than one program at a time will have to buy another streaming subscription or increases the number of DVDs they can receive at a time. To get two streams, you’ll have to pay $19.98 a month for the two-DVD subscription, three DVDs (three streams) will be $23.98 and four DVDs (four streams) will be $29.98.

Like I said before, this has always been in the rules, just rarely enforced. This is from Netflix’s Terms of Service –

Some membership plans allow you to watch simultaneously on more than one personal computer or Netflix ready device at the same time. If you are on the 1 disc out at-a-time plan [or stream-only plan], you may watch only one device at a time. If you are on the 2 discs out at-a-time plan, you may watch on up to two devices at the same time. Members on the 3 disc plan can watch on up to three devices. The maximum is four devices simultaneously, and that is available for members on the 4 or greater discs out at-a-time plans.

Price hike, content loss and a crack down on streaming – all in the same week. It looks like Netflix is really testing the ol’ customer loyalty. What do you think of all these changes? Let us know in the comments.

[Via Stop the Cap]

The second service to launch with invites was overseas streaming music service Spotify. The long-awaited U.S. release was met with excitement from the internet community. Basically, the desktop client allows users to stream millions of tracks for free, on demand. You can check a more in-depth run-through of the service here.

And now, less than a month after debuting in the States, Spotify looks to be expanding its subscriber base at a pretty quick clip.

According to All Things D and their “source familiar with the company’s operations,” Spotify has 1.4 million U.S. users enrolled in the free trial. Even more importantly, they already have 175,000 subscribers who have opted for the paid plans.

The paid plans allow for offline music, unlimited play, and mobile capabilities. The most expensive paid plan is $10.

This makes a conversion rate from free trail to paid subscribers of 12.5%, which is just a little below the 15% rate that Spotify said they had in Europe last year. Spotify has at least 1.6 million paid users in Europe. It’s unsure whether U.S. paid subscriptions will ever reach such a large number. Not only does the U.S. version of Spotify sport a larger music library with its free service, but the competition is strong in the States

Just to name a few you have Last.fm, Grooveshark, satellite radio like Sirius and Rhapsody.

But to put it in perspective, Rhapsody has 800,000 paid subscribers. They have been around for almost a decade.

Blockbuster thinks that this climate of frustration could be good for their business, and have said so in a release posted to their official blog -

The post is actually titled “Blockbuster Rescues Furious Netflix Customers” and here’s a what it says -

Blockbuster L.L.C. today began rescuing upset Netflix customers by launching a limited time, nationwide promotion for all Netflix customers who switch to Blockbuster Total Access.

Blockbuster Total Access provides benefits Netflix doesn’t offer: availability of many new releases 28 days before Netflix; unlimited in-store exchanges; games for Xbox 360, Playstation3, and Nintendo Wii, and no additional charge for Blu-ray movies.

As part of Blockbuster’s ongoing efforts to provide the ultimate in convenience, choice and value, Netflix customers who switch to one of Blockbuster’s two most popular Total Access plans will receive a 30-day free trial. After the free trial, customers will continue to receive Total Access for a new everyday price of only $9.99 per month for “1 Disc” at a time or $14.99 per month for “2 Discs” at a time.

They then go on to talk about all the furious “Screw Netflix, I’m going to Blockbuster” tweets. In my experience I saw more “Screw Netflix, Hello Redbox” tweets but I’m sure some people mentioned Blockbuster.

So, if I understand this correctly, Blockbuster is going to charge $9.99 for the 1-DVD-at-a-time deal, whereas Netflix is going to charge $7.99. For that extra two dollars, customers would get new releases earlier, games and blu-rays included in the deal. When you look at it that way, it sounds like a solid option.

Here’s the problem: Blockbuster doesn’t offer a streaming subscription, and most people value that option. That means that they are likely to keep their Netflix streaming service. People who don’t value DVDs and new releases as much will most likely chose to forgo the $7.99 DVD plan offered by Netflix. And they probably won’t want to have another monthly charge from Blockbuster either.

Going forward, it seems like the most popular option will be to keep the $7.99 Netflix streaming service and just hit the Redbox for any new releases that you can’t find on Instant.

And of course there’s the download option, which this funny little flow chart captures beautifully. Enjoy -

[Flowchart via Geekosystem]

Moving forward, Netflix users will have the option of a $7.99 unlimited streaming service. instead of paying $2 extra for the one-at-a-time unlimited DVD service, users will now have to pay another $7.99 a month for that. This basically means that the $9.99 service was just increased about 60% to $15.98 a month.

If I had to sum up the initial reaction to this announcement in a few words, I think I might use “aw hell no.” Maybe just the world “indignant.”

What will Netflix users do now? The twitterverse is sounding off, and I will use varying tweets to discuss possible outcomes of this new pricing structure.

First, will users jump ship from Netflix to other content providers? Will Redbox, Hulu, and even cable companies benefit from the Netflix backlash?

Let’s break this down. Redbox: I get it. No commitment, $1 rentals. Roughly sixteen films from Redbox in one month would equate to the new streaming & DVD Netflix subscription. Users will have to determine whether or not thy can continue to extract enough value out of Netflix to justify the increased cost. Both Netflix and Redbox, however, have deals in place with most studios that make them wait a month before distributing new releases.

As far as Hulu goes, their streaming service is also $7.99 per month. Like Netflix, it too is available on Xbox360. Switching from one to the other doesn’t seem like it’s doing anything except changing the specific content you have access to.

The argument that cable companies will benefit from this pricing shift is one that fails to make sense to me. Using a cable provider’s on-demand service, rentals can run anywhere from $3 to $8 depending on whether or not it is in HD. Rent two or three of those and you are well over $16 for the month. Plus, subscription services like HBO and Showtime aren’t cheap either. The only draw I can see is that on-demand tends to make new releases available earlier than Netflix.

Will users make a choice and simply drop their streaming or DVD plans?

If users choose to drop either DVD or streaming, then their Netflix bill will actually be a little cheaper than before (considering they had both services to begin with).

But of course the streaming and DVD parts of Netflix are yin & yang, peanut butter & jelly. Streaming provides users with content instantly while the DVDs provide users with the content that isn’t offered via instant streaming.

To assuage the angry masses, Netflix should make a few more deals in the coming months to bring more content to streaming. That might help some people cope with the subscription changes.

Is the price increase really that big of a deal?

Suck it up, you whiners. That is one way to interpret the backlash. An extra $6 a month, when extrapolated over the course of a year only totals an extra $72. To someone willing to pay $120 a year for their Netflix experience, is $192 going to break their bank?

And if that answer is no, then is it just about the principle of the thing? People get pissed when something that they come to take for granted is taken away from them. You are used to both streaming and DVDs for a low price? Too bad, says Netflix. It doesn’t “make great financial sense,” as they say on their blog today.

And if the answer is yes, then maybe switching to just one of the two services and paying roughly $96 a year could actually be beneficial.

Screw it, I’m just going to download everything.

Will this pricing change put more people back on torrent sites? It’s not that everyone ever really left them – filesharing still exists (duh). But Netflix and Hulu serve as a companion to filesharing to some.

Will people that choose to only keep their streaming Netflix service simply revert to the internet to get the new releases that they want to watch? It’s definitely possible. And before you say anything, no, I’m not insinuating that Netflix is now responsible for increased piracy.

There’s no doubt that the new subscription structure will affect how people use the service that they love. On a final note, is it crazy to wonder if Netflix is simply taking their first step in completely weeding out physical DVDs from their service?

[Image Courtesy]

Following his last Fox show this evening, Beck will do his post-TV interview on GBTV at 6. It will be hosted by GBTV correspondent Raj Nair.

In April, Beck announced that he would be leaving the Fox New Channel. The specific reasons for the exit seemed to be different, depending on who you asked (and it still seems to be a topic that falls into partisan lines). There is no arguing that his ratings have fallen. Beck was also hit with advertiser boycotts based on some of his controversial statements.

Some said that tensions between Beck and Fox News led to his departure, while others contend that Beck chose to leave, in order to have more freedom over his content.

So what’s next for Beck? He definitely has big aspirations, as he has said that his new internet network GBTV is “the future” of media. He has said that “the traditional confines of media no longer apply.”

Right now the network is still in its infancy, with only a few programs running each day. At 9 a.m., his radio program airs and at noon he airs an “overtime” segment featuring special guests. The Glenn Beck Show on GBTV, his equivalent to his Fox show, will begin on September 12th at 5 p.m.

Is the internet ready to challenge traditional broadcasters? Or, as Jeff Jarvis noted, the internet may be able to support a star. Time will tell whether or not Beck’s GBTV succeeds (and to what degree), but one thing is for sure: He is one of the first major players to step into the online area. And his career trajectory following his switch from cable to online will probably serve as a model for others to debate making the change.

If he is successful, will it put pressure on other personalities to make the shift to online? If successful, it will show other personalities in various fields – politics, sports, entertainment – that they can take their loyal fanbase from TV to the web.

If GBTV fails, one has to wonder if it will say more about online broadcasting as a medium or simply Glenn Beck’s inability to maintain an audience.

GBTV will be running a subscription model. Nothing will be for free. GBTV will cost $4.95 per month and GBTV plus (more content) will run $9.95 per month. Forbes estimated that if only 50,000 people sign up for the basic service, Beck will take in more than he currently makes with his Fox News gig.

Only time will tell whether or not people follow Beck to GBTV. Love him or hate him, people will be watching to see how he fares.

Today, Playboy Enterprises has launched i.Playboy.com, a site that gives you access to every page from every issue of Playboy ever published. That sure is a lot of…articles.

Here’s the scope of what we are talking about here: 130,000 pages from over 57 years of magazines – every centerfold, pictorial, reporting piece, interview and even every advertisement.

In addition to providing users with access to all issues from December 1953 to present, the site will also feature exclusive videos and curated content recommendations submitted by members of the Playboy Commission, a high-profile panel of celebrated individuals from art, design, fashion, media and technology. Commission members will provide their own content suggestions from the Playboy archives for users to explore and enjoy each month, beginning in June.

The site, i.playboy.com, is optimized for the iPad, meaning you can navigate the service with relative ease and fluidity. Each magazine issue that you open has a content page with yellow highlighted areas that users can tap to jump quickly from section to section within the issue. A promotional video at the site tells users to “zoom in for more detail” by pinching the screen. I’m sure people will.

A subscription to the service will be offered for multiple time-frames. It will run users $8 per month if they pay monthly. A year’s subscription is $60 while a 2-year subscription is $100. You will save a substantial amount of money by going with the 2-year plan.

Here’s what Playboy’s content officer Jimmy Jellinek says about the new service, as quoted at the Chicago Tribune:

Jellinek is optimistic people will pony up the $8 per month or $60 per year for a service that’s “meant to appeal to that sense of collective nostalgia and affinity.” He calls the website “the world’s sexiest time machine” and “an anthology of cool” for a magazine he refers to as “the Mount Rushmore of literary greatness.”

In an age where the next naked girl in just a *free* click away, will people pony up the cash for Playboy online? The magazine has always had the reputation as “classy” pornography, which is more than can be said for much of the stuff on the web. Will the nostalgia factor create subscription sales? Are the interviews with famous people like John Lennon and articles by Jack Kerouac enough to draw people in?

I would think that every page from every Playboy issue ever published is quite an historical document in its own right, and that could drive enough interest to make i.playboy.com work. I mean, come one – when’s the last time you saw the Marilyn Monroe Playboy spread?

Does i.playboy.com interest you?