Filed under: Feature | Tags: Interactive ad, John Legend, L Train, Live From Philadelphia, New York City, Peterson Milla Hooks, Subway, Target
JOHN LEGEND, MY SUBWAY STOP, AND ME
So I’m on the dreaded L train in NYC at the 3rd Avenue stop (Westbound) a few days ago, when I peer out from the open doorway to try and gasp some fresh air. (If you haven’t ridden the L train during the morning rush hour, you haven’t truly attempted the impossible.)
There in front of me is a subway ad beckoning me to plug in and listen to John Legend. Now, I’m not even a fan of John Legend but shockingly enough, I stepped off the train and plugged in. Again, if you not familiar with the L train line, stepping off the train at 3rd Avenue is best compared to Amy Winehouse firing up her crack pipe. She tried to go to rehab. . .
John Legend’s latest album, Live From Philadelphia, was released exclusively through Target in retail locations and on their web site in January ’08. As part of Target’s marketing campaign and push to maintain a presence in the digital download market, they contracted Peterson Milla Hooks to design this interactive ad beckoning silly subway riders like me to detrain.
Legend. . .you’ve won this round. But I promise you this. As cool as this concept is, I won’t make another detraining mistake.
Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE
NBC clarified things vis-a-vis the Upfronts. The network will forgo its usual dog and pony show and instead schedule a series of one-on-one client meetings in New York, LA and Chicago, culminating in an event on May 12 in Manhattan that will showcase the “platforms and capabilities” of the NBC group as a whole. Digital properties, out of home assets, wireless and mobile offerings will be emphasized as integral parts of integrated campaigns in this new “customer-first” approach. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/business/media/20adco.html?_r=1&oref=slogin 2/20)
The 100-day Hollywood writers strike took a $2.5 billion toll on the Los Angeles County economy. The cost of the walkout was previously estimated at $3.2 billion. The last writers strike, a 153-day walkout in 1988, resulted in an estimated $500 million in lost wages. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080219/ap_en_mo/hollywood_labor 2/19)
Martha Stewart Omnimedia has acquired the licensing rights to some of The Food Network star Emeril Lagasse’s far-flung assets, including TV shows, Web sites, cookbooks and food products. The deal, estimated to be worth $50 million, does not affect Lagasse’s relationship with The Food Network, which currently is producing “The Essence of Emeril.” (Multichannel News 2/19)
FOX ordered many current series, such as Bones, House, Back to You and ‘Til Death, back into production and also announced premiere dates this spring for other new series.
USA Network has ordered up another season of Monk from Universal Media Studios with Mandeville Films and ABC Studios. The 7th season is scheduled to debut this May. Also scheduled to launch this spring/summer on USA are the new series The Starter Wife and In Plain Sight as well as new seasons of Psyche, Burn Notice and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.
TNT’s Sunday telecast of the NBA All-Star game was a slam dunk with the key 18-to-34 demographic, according to Nielsen Media Research. Total adult viewership, ages 18 to 34, was up 18%, to 2.28 million, from the previous year, and males in that category increased 20%, to 1.47 million. (Mediaweek 2/19)
Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes should sell AOL’s Internet access business, separate Time Warner Cable and focus on lifting returns at the company’s cable networks, says Sanford Bernstein analyst Michael Nathanson. The steps may get the company’s shares to “break out the multiyear funk.” (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=a3MM_.bjFfh0 2/19)
Starting March 17, Mel B (Melanie Brown) will become part of the Access Hollywood team as a guest correspondent to cover the new season of ABC’s Dancing With the Stars.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is giving about 40 ABC affiliates until Feb. 21 to pay fines of $27,500 apiece for airing a bare behind in an episode of “NYPD Blue,” reaffirming its commitment to indecency regulation: Broadcast media “have a uniquely pervasive presence.” (http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6533658.html 2/19)
DirecTV and Dish Network have partnered to block an FCC proposal that would require satellite operators to carry all broadcast HD signals in markets where they carry at least one outlet after the transition to digital. Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., concerned that an HD requirement would cause such operators to abandon local markets, asked Chairman Kevin Martin, via a letter, to “closely examine” the proposal. (Broadcasting & Cable 2/19)
Cable provider Suddenlink Communications now has more than 100,000 customers for its Voice over Internet Protocol service. The company offers VoIP to about 80% of its 1.3 million subscribers, the vast majority of whom reside in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, West Virginia, North Carolina and California. (Multichannel News 2/19)
Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Microsoft is getting aggressive in its bid to acquire Yahoo, hiring a proxy solicitation firm to help oust the Web portal’s 10-member board. The software giant also may simultaneously circumvent Yahoo’s management and ask shareholders to sell their stock to Microsoft directly. (http://www.smartmoney.com/bn/ON/index.cfm?story=ON-20080220-000291-0447 2/20)
Microsoft may announce a new partnership with Netflix to offer the rental company’s movies over its Xbox Live service, if renewed rumors are correct. “A partnership with Netflix gives Microsoft a partner that already streams movies to over 7 million subscribers through their PCs, and encourages these subscribers to sign up for the Xbox Live service in order to stream movies to their TVs,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan. (MSNBC 2/19)
News Corp.’s MySpace is holding talks with major record labels about an online service that would let users listen to music free, as long as they do it at their computers. The so-called MySpace Music would likely be structured as a joint venture with the participating labels. (http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120347734816179147.html 2/20)
Disney Online is adding to its online services for children with a new virtual world called Pixie Hollow, based on fictional characters like Disney’s Tinkerbell. Separately, Time Warner’s AOL plans to relaunch its kids site KOL with new content from National Geographic Kids, among others. (http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9874335-7.html 2/19)
Yahoo is following in Google’s footsteps again in search. Today, it is shifting a crucial part of its search engine to Hadoop, software that handles large-scale distributed computing tasks particularly well. Hadoop is an open-source implementation of Google’s MapReduce software and file system. It takes all the links on the Web found by a search engine’s crawlers and “reduces” them to a map of the Web so that ranking algorithms can be run against them. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/20/yahoo-search-wants-to-be-more-like-google-embraces-hadoop 2/20)
Online content delivery network Limelight Networks reported Q4 revenues of $29.1 million, up 31% from a year ago, but also revealed expanded net losses of $6.2 million from $4.9 million in Q4 of 2006. The company actually blamed the Writers’strike in a conference call with analysts, despite the conventional wisdom that online video consumption increased during the period. Limelight added 200 new customers during the fourth quarter but suffered in a price war with rivals such as Akamai, as it was forced to lower the costs of streaming video for its content clients.
NBC Digital Entertainment announced plans to begin streaming full episodes of vintage TV shows this month for free on NBC.com and select NBC Cable Entertainment sites. Included among the classics, look for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Night Gallery on NBC.com, the original Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers on SciFi.com, Swamp Thing and Crow on ChillerTV.com and Kojak and Miami Vice on SleuthChannel.com. (http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Entertainment/2008/02/19/nbc_to_stream_vintage_content_on_web_sites/6636 2/19)
National Lampoon signed a revenue-sharing content partnership with DailyMotion to provide comedy programming to the video sharing site, the first partner to take advantage of DailyMotion’s new HD video player.
The Crystal Light beverage brand launched uPumpitUp.com, a wellness-themed social networking site targeting women with actress Mandy Moore as partner and spokesperson. The site features expert instructional videos presented as overlays who pose open self help challenges to the community.
A branded social networking site featuring Mandy Moore brought to you by Crystal Light? What’s next? A branded Tampex social networking site featuring Paris Hilton?!? You know social networking has spun a bit out of control when things like this start happening. . .
Online video viewing is helping to create a new entertainment medium for younger viewers rather than steering them away from television, according to new study by New Hampshire-based Leichtman Research Group. Among viewers aged 18-34, 42% reported that they watch video online at home at least weekly – up from 28% last year – but only 9% of all online video viewers surveyed claimed they watch TV less often as a result of their new habits.
Forrester Research projects that digital music sales will grow at a compound annual rate of 23% over the next five years, reaching $4.8 billion by 2012 — not enough to make up for lost CD sales. The rise of DRM-free music will allow social networks like Facebook “to become music stores.” (http://www.radioink.com/HeadlineEntry.asp?hid=141106 2/19)
Former AOL CEO Jon Miller is joining online advertising firm OpenX as chairman, banking on room in the industry for smaller players even as it consolidates around big deals like Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo. OpenX’s free software lets Web publishers control how ads are served on their sites. (http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSN1817293320080219 2/19)
Filed under: WIRELESS
AT&T is offering the Palm Centro “crossover device” to its customer base for $99.99. The device, said to be Palm’s lightest to date, features a QWERTY keyboard and supports voice, texting and Internet. (American City Business Journals/San Jose, Calif. 2/19)
Sprint Nextel has introduced a quad-band handset from Samsung that supports voice calling in 180 countries and data in 100. The Samsung Ace runs on the Microsoft Windows Mobile 6 operating system. United Press International (2/18)
French conglomerate Vivendi is launching a mobile service called Zaoza (Chinese for “word of mouth” or “buzz”) offering unlimited downloads of content — music, video clips, games — for $4.40 per month. Subscribers will be able to share everything they download with up to five friends. (http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/feb2008/gb20080219_674610.htm 2/19)
A Microsoft developer posed the question to bloggers on how to more closely tie the Zune player with the Windows Mobile OS, which generated several ideas, with convergence being a running theme. “There are any number of ways that Microsoft could go about Zune integration. We might see a Zune application for Windows Mobile devices,” said Michael Gartenberg, a research director with Jupiter Research. (Yahoo!/InfoWorld 2/19)
Turner Sports said over 1 million text message votes were received during the NBA All Star Weekend Slam Dunk contest, with 78% of the fans choosing eventual champion Dwight Howard. Over 61,000 fans voted for the All-Star Access isolated camera feature.
Filed under: GAMING
Intel is introducing the Dual Socket Extreme desktop platform, which supports eight processing engines and multicard graphics solutions. “Long term this translates to better games on the market faster than previously possible,” said Robert A. Duffy, programming director at id Software. (EDN/Electronic News 2/19)
Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE signed an agreement to distribute the winning entries from this year’s South by Southwest Greenlight Awards, given by ON Networks to the Best Original Digital Production and Best Original Digital Series.
Apple has slashed the price of its iPod shuffle from $79 to $49 and will introduce later this month a 2GB version of the player for $69 that is double the capacity of the original model. (Bloomberg 2/19, American City Business Journals/San Jose, Calif. 2/19)
Plasma sets lost ground to LCDs in December as flat-panel sales grew 27% during a month when the price tag on 17 of the top 20 best-selling models dipped at least 10%, according to Pacific Media Associates. The research firm said LCDs should continue to gain market share this year as new, larger-capacity models permeate the marketplace. CE Pro (2/19)
