This video selection is inspired by my good friend Nita, the original hipster. These videos are produced by a group called P0YKPAC, 5 friends from Brooklyn, NYC acting for fun and profit. Their video Mario: Game Over is up for a YouTube Award in the comedy category. It’s not as good as Hipster Olympics but at least worth watching for the ending.
MTV has ordered eight episodes of a series that will be based on “Ladette to Lady,” a popular contest show in the U.K. about young women who are shipped off to boarding school to undergo a regimen of self-improvement and empowerment training. In the U.S., the as-yet-untitled show will be produced by RDF USA and Donald Trump’s Trump Productions. (Variety 3/25)
Ladette to Lady
As one season ended, another was announced as MTV and Diddy will return Making The Band for a new season. Danity Kane, Day26 and Donnie Klang will appear in new episodes scheduled for air this summer. (Cynopsis 3/26)
USA will hold its upfront presentation tonight for advertising executives with a strong message: It was more profitable last year than many broadcast networks, its president has a new contract with expanded duties and first-quarter viewership is up 7% compared with last year. “It’s probably become the single most important entity within the entire portfolio” of NBC, Jeff Zucker, CEO of NBC Universal, said of USA. (Los Angeles Times 3/26)
Rob Thomas’ third project this season, Good Behavior was picked up by ABC. The 60m dramedy, produced by ABC Studios, is about a family of criminals whose mother decides the family must now go straight, after dad has been caught and thrown in the pen for the next five years. (Cynopsis 3/26)
Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House are in early talks with Sprint Nextel and Clearwire Corp. about creating a wireless company that would promote WiMAX technologies that would give super-high-speed access to computers, cell phones and other mobile devices, according to this report. Sources said that Comcast would be the lead cable investor, followed by Time Warner Cable and Bright House. The cable companies were unavailable for comment on the report. (The Washington Post/Reuters 3/25,The Wall Street Journal 3/26)
The 45 cable networks monitored by TNS Media Intelligence turned in a 6.5% increase in advertising revenue in 2007, the research firm said. Overall, the cable nets generated $17.84 billion in ad sales, while network TV fell 2%, spot TV dropped 10.2% and syndication sagged 1.5%, TNS reported. (Multichannel News 3/25)
March Madness continued its record setting pace over the weekend, according to CBSSports.com, as live video and audio streaming already surpassed totals for the entire 2007 tourney. (Cynopsis Digital, 3/26)
Daily unique visitors totaled 3.3 million (+129% from ‘07)
Live video & audio streaming equaled 3.7 million hours (+36% over the entire ‘07 event)
3.6 million fans are playing CBS Sports bracket games on sites like Facebook (+62%)
So far the Georgia/Xavier game on 3/20/08 had the largest # of total hours of consumption, a record 376,000 for a single game.
Engadget and Gizmodo are ranked as two of the most popular blogs in the world, pulling in an average 4.1 million and 3.4 million unique visitors a month, respectively. Both sites routinely break news. As a Samsung spokesperson puts it: “Blogs are the future of the world for us.” (Iwantmedia 3/26, http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/16-04/mf_gadgetblogs 3/24)
Chris Mascari, Adrian Covert, and Brian Lam (from left) at Gizmodo’s San Francisco HQ, which doubles as Lam’s apartment.
Photo: Joe Pugliese
Time Warner’s AOL unit is aiming to transform from an Internet service provider into a full-service digital-advertising business. To that end, it has spent about $1 billion to buy seven ad-technology firms. AOL’s future is seen to hinge on the success of knitting them all together. (Iwantmedia 3/26, http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120649623563164451.html 3/26)
Citigroup has raised its Yahoo price target to $34/ share based on their belief that Microsoft will revise its takeover offer.Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney said in a research note that “We believe that a Yahoo sale to Microsoft — at a price higher than the initial $31 bid is the most likely outcome” and that the limited combined market share of the combined companies would raise no significant issues with Government regulators. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/25/citigroup-raises-yahoo-target-to-34-based-on-revised-microsoft-bid 3/25)
Netflix, the movie-rental service, has mailed surveys to subscribers gauging their interest in streaming films through Microsoft’s Xbox platform, Reuters reported. Netflix declined to comment, but the company has been quoted as saying it would like to stream more movies to its customers, and with HD DVD out of the picture, it is speculated that Microsoft may want films for its Live Video Marketplace. (GameDaily BIZ 3/25)
HBO, in coordination with interactive promotional agency ePrize, has created an online sweepstakes to compliment its 7-part miniseries entitled John Adams. Users can enter the sweepstakes by inputing a code located within tagged video assets found on HBO on Demand, HBO.com, HBO on Broadband, Affiliate Broadband Video Players, YouTube and iTunes.
Starz Entertainment and Manga Entertainment signed a deal to distribute a selection of original entertainment titles through the iTunes store. Look for episodes of Head Case and Hollywood Residential from Starz and anime titles Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Tactics from Manga Ent. (Cynopsis Digital, 3/26)
Joel Madden on Head Case
Carmaker Mercedes-Benz is launching its own music show on its own Internet-based television station. The new “Mixed Tape Music Magazine” is an online show featuring video clips by artists such as Jennifer Lopez. The marketing drive mirrors the migration of advertising to the Web. (Iwantmedia 3/26, http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120649040498764019.html 3/26)
Mixed Tape Music Magazine
Playlist sharing facilitator Imeem became the latest social media site to release a software development kit for programmers, joining fellow OpenSocial members Bebo and MySpace. The idea is to entice developers to tap into imeem’s licensed library of songs from major labels to create original music apps. (Cynopsis Digital, 3/26)
Here’s a video match made for the Web. Revision3, the video playground of Digg founders Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson, is teaming up with Blip.tv to syndicate all of its shows. That includes Diggnation (shown above with hosts Alex Albrecht and Rose), the GigaOm Show, Web Drifter, and Tekzilla. Some of these shows are already popular, especially Diggnation. And they are distributed in many ways—through Revision3″s Website, through iTunes, as embedded videos. By signing this deal, Revsion3 expands its reach to Blip.tv’s audience. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/25/revision3-strengthens-bliptvs-roster-with-syndication-deal 3/25)
The network relies on users for its content, why not its ads? Al Gore-backed Current launched a user generated ad messaging campaign in the UK for Telefonica division 02. Viewers are encouraged to create a 60-second spot for O2’s “Bluebook: Nothing is Lost” campaign. Creators whose commercials are selected to run on the network or current.com receive 1,000 British pounds and up to 25,000 if utilized elsewhere. (Cynopsis Digital, 3/26)
Northstar Media acquired worldwide television, VOD, mobile, and broadband rights to a package of 21 IMAX films including Into The Deep and Blue Planet, marking the first time that all 21 titles have been made available for these outlets. (Cynopsis Digital, 3/26)
In a clear move to keep Motorola’s flagging mobile phone sales from pulling down its lucrative broadband and switching enterprise services the company is splitting into two publicly-traded organizations. The Mobile Devices company will focus on mobile handsets while the Broadband and Mobility solutions sector will work on secure voice and data communication along with broadband for enterprises and government. Motorola shareholders will receive shares in each of the companies once the process is completed. (Iwantmedia 3/26, http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/26/cg-news-motorola-splits 3/26)
Looks like a blatant rip-off of the iPhone design to me.
CBS Mobile is partnering with a firm called Aggregate Knowledge, which sifts through click-histories of every story on mobile Web sites and looks at users in aggregate to find patterns so that it can recommend relevant Web content. CBS Mobile will offer the news feature this week. (Iwantmedia 3/26, http://www.news.com/newsblog/8301-10784_3-9903217-7.html 3/25)
