ONLINE SITE OF THE WEEK: JUMP.BECAUSE
If you don’t already know, I have a little affection for all things jumping related:
So when a friend forwarded this site to me a week ago, I just couldn’t resist reaching out and submitting a photo of my own. This one above was taken in Bangkok Thailand in front of the Royal Palace. That’s right. White girl can jump y’all.
Check out the site for some really amazing jumping photos, that simply just make you feel good.
Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE | Tags: Edward James Olmos, Events, NBC Universal, NBCU, Olympic, Sports, Summer Games, Summer Olympic Games
Sci Fi is working on a two-hour “Battlestar Galactica” movie that will begin shooting at the end of the summer in Vancouver, Canada, and will be directed by star Edward James Olmos. On the series side, the 10-episode final season will debut early next year. (Yahoo!/E! Online 8/7)
The Olympic flame is still burning … at least on Madison Avenue, which has committed more than $1 billion in ad spending to NBC Universal‘s coverage of the Summer Games in Beijing. Besides the NBC broadcast network, advertisers have snapped up Olympic-related inventory on NBCU cable nets such as USA, MSNBC, CNBC, Oxygen and Universal HD. (Variety 8/7)
One rumor making the rounds within various News Corp. outposts is that president and COO Peter Chernin might leave if private equity money were to buy a big media concern and he is offered a piece of the action to run it. Chernin is declining to comment. (Iwantmedia 8/8, http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/08/news/newsmakers/siklos_chernin.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008080809 8/8)
RCN Corp. President and CEO Peter Aquino said the company had increased revenue-generating units in its TV, telephony and broadband divisions during the second quarter, which helped the cable provider boost total revenue 16%, to $184 million, against the comparable period a year earlier. “Our growth strategy of winning customers from both cable and telecom incumbents across multiple products and customer segments is paying off, as we continue to leverage our unique metro and regional fiber platform,” he said. (CED Magazine 8/2008, OneTRAK 8/7)
Top Cablevision executives including CEO James Dolan, Chief Operating Officer Tom Rutledge and Chief Financial Officer Michael Huseby will meet next week with some of the company’s largest shareholders to discuss ways to improve its stock price, according to this article. Strategic moves considered to be up for discussion include the sale of Rainbow Media, the parent of cable nets such as AMC and IFC, or Madison Square Garden, the home of the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers, or both. (The Wall Street Journal 8/8)
It’s still subject to the approval of the mayor and City Council, but Verizon has received preliminary approval to bring its FiOS service to Washington. If it happens, FiOS will compete with Comcast, the prospects of which don’t seem overly worrisome for the country’s top cable provider: “Competition is not new to Comcast,” said spokeswoman Jaye P. Linnen. “The phone company is simply trying to catch up to where we have been for years.” (The Washington Post 8/8)
Perhaps picking up some of the 25,000 customers Dish Network lost, DirecTV posted higher than expected revenue growth as net profit rose to $455 million during Q2. The satellite provider reduced churn, added 129,000 net new subscribers and enjoyed healthy growth in Latin America. Average revenue per user also rose by 7%, thanks to HD and DVR signees. (Cynopsis 8/8)
Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: 2008 Summer Olympics, China, Events, New York Times, Olympic Games, Olympics, Sports, us
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
The New York Times is pulling out all the latest digital bells and whistles for its online Olympic Games coverage, devoting 20 staffers in the U.S. to keeping the content refreshed (in addition to two dozen Beijing Bureau members on the ground in China.) Check out the Olympics Tracker, allowing you to easily keep track of the events you’re interested in. It’s available as a web tool or a desktop application. The audio-driven After the Games feature is also very well done. (Cynopsis 8/8)
Yahoo!Telemundo is hoping to attract U.S. Hispanics in search of their Olympics fix. The site’s new Olympics portal features a full complement of news, photo galleries and video highlights (courtesy of the EFE news agency,) as well as social networking options with Flickr and Yahoo! Respuestas. (Cynopsis 8/8)
Digital revenues increased nearly 40% year-over-year at Warner Music Group during the quarter ending June 30 to $166 million, making up 20% of the company’s total revenue intake. But CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. thinks the company can do even better in the digital space. He complained in a conference call that Warner is helping to make music-themed console games like Activision’s Guitar Hero and Viacom’s Rock Band huge successes but seeing little in the way of compensation. (Cynopsis 8/8)
The music industry’s attempts to create its own digital distribution business is like a bad horror movie. It just keeps coming back no matter how badly bludgeoned it gets. Back in 2001 in response to Napster, the music labels launched two competing music download sites, PressPlay and MusicNet (the latter became a white-label music service called MediaNet. Meanwhile, Pressplay was bought by Roxio, and formed the basis for the current version of Napster). Both were utter failures. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/07/the-record-industrys-digital-distribution-plan-totalmusic-comes-back-from-the-dead 8/7)
Rainbow Media-owned Fuse and Microsoft have finalized a deal that will bring the network’s “Summer of Music” series to members of the Xbox Live marketplace. The deal, which includes artists such as Pearl Jam, Metallica and Jack Johnson, will run through September and be offered free to Xbox Live’s 12 million users worldwide. (Broadcasting & Cable 8/7)
TheWB.com, now in beta testing, will launch on Aug. 27, offering classic series that aired on the now-defunct WB television network along with new Web series. Comcast will offer classic WB series via its video-on-demand service; TheWB.com content will also be on Facebook. (Iwantmedia 8/8, http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/news/digital-downloads/broadband/e3ibbaddb3b39b75b77ddd52b8aa35224bb 8/7)
For the Marauder download on the site, click here or the image below.
Blinkx, an Internet video search company, is proposing buying U.S. search-based advertising network Miva for $39 million to accelerate its expansion in targeted Web ads. Blinkx’s proposed bid “has the potential to significantly change the shape of the business,” analysts say. (Iwantmedia 8/8, http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSL869961320080808 8/8)
The 5% stake in AOL that Google bought in 2005 “may be impaired” and worth less than the $1 billion the search giant originally paid, according to regulatory filing. As part of its investment, Google has the right to demand that Time Warner spin off AOL or buy back its stake. (Iwantmedia 8/8, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080808/ap_on_hi_te/google_aol 8/8)
Google is developing a system that lets advertisers limit and measure the number of times users view ads on its partners’sites. Clients will be able to better place ads based on the number of views they get and the number of users that visit a Web site after seeing it. (Iwantmedia 8/8, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=adXENueI5QbQ 8/7)
Yahoo is set to announce that it will allow users to shut off targeted advertising on its Web sites, as a U.S. congressional committee continues to air concerns about consumer privacy. As media companies struggle to make money online, Congress is mulling what kind of ads ought to be allowed. (Iwantmedia 8/8, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/07/AR2008080703104.html 8/8)
The beta version of Sling Media’s SlingPlayer 2.0 is now available for Windows PCs as a free download on the Sling site. The new software suite adds a bunch of new functions including a live video buffer for more DVR-like controls, an interactive player guide and multiple viewing modes and sizes allowing you to shrink the feed on your desktop. However the much-hyped Clip+Sling feature, allowing you to clip up to 5 minutes of video to share with friends online, is not a part of the beta. (Cynopsis 8/8)
Video metadata management company Gotuit announced a partnership with Move Networks integrating services to better define logical ad insertion points within video libraries. The Gotuit-Move solution will create an ad timing system to insert ads at strategic places within a clip using rich scene-level metadata. The idea is to improve engagement and enhance search functionality by enabling video to be indexed scene by scene. (Cynopsis 8/8)
Filed under: WIRELESS | Tags: App Store, Apple, Dynolicious, G-Tech Pro, Handhelds, iPhone, iTunes, Smartphones
Apple wields ultimate control over applications running on your iPhone. If it doesn’t like an app it flips a “kill switch” that zaps an unpalatable iTunes App off your iPhone in a heart beat. At least that’s the buzz today in the blogosphere about a line of code found inside Apple’s iPhone 2.0 software by independent iPhone developer Jonathan Zdziarski. (http://www.pcworld.com/article/149561/apple_can_kill_iphone_apps_remotely_or_can_it.html# 8/7)
Gizmodo recently reported on Dynolicious, the $13 app that uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to meter your car’s performance, and mentioned a few positive impressions that surfaced in the app’s early days. Sure, the idea is appealing and makes theoretical sense, but I at least need vaguely scientific confirmation that this thing actually works well. It is in the spirit of vague science, then, that Garage419 takes Dynolicious out on the track and pitting it against the circuit’s clock as well as the popular G-Tech Pro accelerometer-based dynometer, generally regarded as the industry standard for consumer performance metering. (http://gizmodo.com/5034542/13-iphone-app-faces-off-against-embarrasses-150-dedicated-dynometer 8/7)
Filed under: GAMING | Tags: EA, Electronic Arts, For Dummies, GAME, Nintendo DS, Pogo.com, Poker For Dummies, Video game
Electronic Arts is rolling out a series of multiplatform games co-branded with the For Dummies name to teach players how to master popular games. The first in the series is Poker for Dummies, now available for download on EA’s Pogo.com. (Cynopsis 8/8)
Filed under: TECHNOLOGY | Tags: Business, Energy, Online shopping, Remote control, Renewable, Shopping, Television, Wind
TECHNOLOGY
If you’re looking to extend your green lifestyle to the TV room, online retailer Gizoo has an item for you. It’s the Wind-Up Remote Control, which, instead of batteries, uses good, old-fashioned hand power: 30 turns of a dial charges the device for about a week. (Pocket-lint.co.uk 8/8)
Filed under: MISC | Tags: Anil Ambani, Arts, DreamWorks, DreamWorks SKG, Minimal instruction set computer, MISC Steven Spielberg, Paramount Pictures, Viacom
Steven Spielberg‘s DreamWorks SKG is nearing an agreement for a $550 million investment from Indian billionaire Anil Ambani, allowing the film studio to split from Viacom’s Paramount. A deal may be reached as soon as next week; Spielberg may leave Viacom by November. (Iwantmedia 8/8, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aUAaysg2FT34 8/7)
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