Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE
BROADCAST/CABLE
Verizon announced plans to offer HD video on demand through its FiOS fiber-to-the-home TV service.
In a move aimed at further penetrating the global entertainment market, Disney has created a new unit to streamline cable, satellite, online and mobile distribution. The move mirrors a similar effort that took place when the company combined ABC, ESPN and Disney Channel into an affiliate marketing group. “We found out not only did we share best practices, we also became a much better organization for all of our cable and satellite partners to do business with,” a Disney executive said. (Los Angeles Times 6/20)
The third-season debut of “The Closer” attracted close to 9 million viewers, a basic cable viewing record. Bob Barker’s farewell appearance on “The Price Is Right” attracted 8.4 million viewers in prime time. (The Washington Post 6/20)
With many upfront negotiations expected to be concluded by the end of this week, ad inventories are reportedly fetching high single-digit increases over last year’s prices. As evidenced by a deal announced by Discovery and Starcom USA, average commercial minute ratings deals have also grown in popularity. (The Hollywood Reporter 6/20)
Controversial Anna Nicole Smith Judge Larry Seidlin is committing to develop a fall 2008 court show with CBS Television Distribution, according to multiple industry sources. Seidlin is expected to tape a pilot or sales presentation next month in Los Angeles. (http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6453559.html 6/19)
Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Looking to expand its reach into Internet-based business, News Corp. is reportedly considering exchanging MySpace for a 25% stake in Yahoo! News Corp. purchased MySpace for $580 million in 2005. Yahoo! is currently valued at about $37 billion. Officials from both companies have not commented on the report. (Houston Chronicle/Associated Press 6/20)
A possible transaction with News Corp. for a stake in MySpace would be “monumentally stupid” for Yahoo, writes Michael Arrington of TechCrunch. “The MySpace star is fading.” Yahoo users would be “much happier with a Facebook merger, or no merger at all.” (http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/06/19/is-myspace-worth-12-billion/ 6/19)
Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s newly appointed CEO, is “widely acknowledged as a visionary — he built something out of nothing,” says Standard & Poor’s analyst Scott Kessler. “But he’s not really a manager and never has been, so there’s a level of skepticism about this news.” (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-yahoo20jun20,1,7410102.story?ctrack=1&cset=true 6/20)
Ousted Yahoo CEO Terry Semel pocketed more than half a billion dollars before he was removed from office on Monday. He made the money from shares and option gains over his six years at the helm. Semel’s personal profit works out at some $282,000 a day, including Sundays. (http://www.thestreet.com/funds/followmoney/10363693.html 6/20)
Microsoft is prioritizing plans to develop a one-stop shop for Internet advertisers in its bid to catch Google and take a bigger share of Web advertising. Microsoft exec Yusuf Mehdi says: “There is going to be one Internet advertising platform. That is just the trend of the future.” (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/8872feea-1f23-11dc-ac86-000b5df10621.html 6/20)
Facebook says it is attracting 1,000 developers a day building new tools for the open source Facebook Platform. New widgets include a video player developed by SplashCast that allows users to watch the most recent Rocketboom podcast. The Skype Me application allows friends to ping each other via Skype.
Veoh is prepping the launch of Veoh TV, a free video browser that will enable users to view content culled from more than 20,000 sources. Unlike competitor Joost, which only shows content for which it has licensing deals, Veoh TV will record, save and sort any free video available on the Web, whether it’s consumer-uploaded clips or major media offerings. (CNNmoney.com/Business 2.0 6/20)
Aggregated online video. . .very cool. That said, I want professionally produced content and user generated content searchable in one place across all platforms including linear TV, on demand, online, and mobile. Any takers on that one?
BitTorrent has announced the release of a software-development kit for consumer-electronics devices. The SDK would allow hardware manufacturers to embed P2P-content-delivery strategies into consumer electronics such as set-top boxes and networked attached-storage devices. (vnunet.com 6/19)
The AIM Tell-A-Vision Group (AIM TV) will launch a new video-on-the-web network titled The American Latino TV Network, developed in conjunction with Zeitbyte. The site will include a library of over 1,000 produced “evergreen” segments and hundreds of hours of never before seen footage. The network will promote the show on its programs as well as with AIM TV’s radio, print, online, and event partners.
McClatchy Company director and CEO of the Pittsburgh Pirates Kevin McClatchy took a minority stake in adult social network Gather.com, joining entities such as Allen & Co., Hearst, McGraw-Hill and the American Public Media Group.
Broadband Enterprises introduced a new video and transactional system creating a virtual marketplace for publishers, advertisers and content providers. The vComm platform is contextually based, paring relevant video programming and ads with text-based stories and resources. BE will provide websites with code that can be used to scan the site’s metadata for relevant video.
Social network Multiply topped the 5 million-user mark, generating over 1 million photo uploads, 13,000 video posts and 28,000 blog entries daily. Multiply gives users a central site to post all kinds of digital content and provides free software to enable users to start blogs, schedule events/parties and share movie, TV and restaurant reviews.
Eh. . .only mildly different from the other social networking sites out there. All this social networking is making me stressed out when I hear the word ‘profile’.
Along the same idea, Houston-based HushLabs (run by RackSpace founder Richard Yoo) launched Natuba, a service that aggregates users’personal web 2.0 pages in a single place. Users can aggregate their MySpace profile, a blog at LiveJournal, photos on Flickr, videos on YouTube and IMs on Twitter so that their friends don’t have to hop all over the web to keep up. The site is in beta, invite-only.
Everybody has to do the invite-only thing now. Gmail started it, Joost popularized it, and now everybody and their mother wants to velvet rope their sign-up process. Natuba, let me speak directly if I may: You’re no Joost my friend. This idea works when it’s the hot new program that everyone wants but let’s face it, you’re a web site agreggator. I can link to my other web sites off of my blog if I really want to (which I would never do). In closing, Natuba, get over yourself!
Google announced the RechargeIT initiative, setting out to reduce greenhouse emissions and oil dependence by encouraging the use of hybrid, plug-in vehicles. Google.org has given away $1 million in grants to organizations including the Brookings Institute, CalCars and the Electrical Power Research Institute and has plans to request $10 million for proposals to fund development, adoption and commercialization of fully electric cars and those utilizing vehicle-to-grid technology.
Passages of O.J. Simpson’s manuscript “If I Did It,” about how he could have killed his ex-wife and her friend, are on TMZ.com, a joint venture between Time Warner’s AOL and Telepictures Productions. The book originally was to be published by News Corp.’s former ReganBooks. (http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Entertainment/2007/06/20/oj_simpson_book_hits_the_internet/6868/ 6/20)
The producers of the Web series “Lonelygirl15,” which is popular among young consumers, are signing a marketing deal with Neutrogena. A new character, described as a “Neutrogena staffer,” will be added to the show. Neutrogena will stream episodes on its own site. (http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117967249.html?categoryid=18&cs=1 6/19)
Just a month after the Sports Illustrated relaunch of recent acquisition FanNation.com, the social networking site is bringing in 4 million monthly uniques. Advertisers are said to be showing increased willingness to engage in user-generated content. (http://www.minonline.com/topstory.htm 6/19)
Online ad spending will nearly double in the U.S. from $19.9 billion this year to $35.4 billion by 2012, according to a new report by JupiterResearch. Growth will be driven by the rise in behavioral targeting, improvements in contextual advertising and the shift toward more lucrative rich media and video ads.
Filed under: WIRELESS
WIRELESS
Apple’s widely anticipated music and video playing iPhone will allow subscribers to wirelessly stream material from YouTube. The popular video sharing site is now encoding its videos in a new format to improve quality and save battery life when viewed over wireless devices. (http://www.reuters.com/article/technology-media-telco-SP/idUSWEN887020070620 6/20)
Discovery signed a deal with Third Screen Media to deliver Discovery-themed ads to mobile phones. The company has used its MADX technology to manage and serve mobile ads for Deadliest Catch and is planning to power 12-14 additional campaigns this year, comprising of WAP-based banner ads, trailers and promotional content including ringtones, wallpapers and mobisodes.
A new partnership between California-based Glu Mobile and BPlay will introduce several popular gaming titles to Research in Motion’s BlackBerry devices. Gaming titles such as “Monopoly,” “Transformers” and “Deer Hunter” will likely help Glu continue its expansion into mobile-gaming ventures. (Forbes 6/19)
Filed under: GAMING
GAMING
Publisher MumboJumbo is entering into a relationship with Universal Pictures Digital Platforms to develop games based on the NBC series “The Office.” MumboJumbo is exploring additional avenues, including Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade and Sony’s PlayStation Network Platform. (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3ia91b17b15e3f3af5655ca19747a903d3 6/20)
British censors have banned the video game “Manhunt 2,” the first such ban in 10 years. “‘Manhunt 2′ is distinguishable from recent high-end video games by its unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone in an overall game context which constantly encourages visceral killing with exceptionally little alleviation or distancing,” British Board of Film Classification’s David Cooke said. (The New York Times/Reuters 6/20)
PlayStation creator Ken Kutaragi officially retired from Sony on Tuesday, leaving behind a company that is facing strong competition from rivals Nintendo and Microsoft. In a recent interview, Kutaragi said online gaming and the Internet were the future of the PlayStation console. (Yahoo!/TechWeb/InformationWeek 6/19)
