Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

In August Techcrunch speculated that music may be the single biggest factor helping MySpace keep its commanding lead over Facebook in the U.S. market.  About a week or so ago, Facebook began an earnest effort to build a Facebook Music application. They didn’t announce this publicly. Instead, Vice President of Business Development Dan Rose and his team reached out to 8 or 9 Internet music services to discuss what the service might look like. Facebook execs also met with major music labels in New York this week to discusss the project, says one source. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/23/facebook-dreams-of-easy-music-while-religious-battle-rages-internally 10/23)

MySpace Music continues to sign key music deals – today they announced the addition of the no. 2 independent music aggregator, IODA, to the platform. Orchard, the no. 1 indie aggregator, has been on board since the launch. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/22/myspace-music-signs-ioda-gains-6000-indie-labels-and-50000-artists 10/22)

The biggest social network in the United states is still News Corp.’s MySpace, according to new figures from Nielsen. However, MySpace’s traffic has only grown by 1% since September 2007. Twitter, fueled by loads of press coverage, is seeing 343% growth since a year earlier. (Iwantmedia 10/23, http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10073531-2.html 10/22)

Yahoo director Carl Icahn is doubling his stake in film studio Lions Gate. “If Yahoo buys a traditional media company like Lions Gate, all of a sudden that takes it to a whole new level,” says one media investment advisor. Yahoo could develop “a profitable online distribution system.” (Iwantmedia 10/23, http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/the-hollywood-deal/2008/10/22/icahn-double-feature-a-yahoo-lions-gate-deal 10/22)

CBS Interactive debuted a new original scripted web series from creator Jonathan Prince (A&E’s The Cleaner), who has a first look deal with CBS Paramount Network Television. The 8-webisode Novel Adventures revolves around a woman’s book club in LA, who use the books they read to inspire them to tackle real adventures. The series was shot in HD and stars a seasoned cast. It will be distributed for an exclusive 48-hour window on CBS.com, TheInsider.com and TV.com before becoming available on iTunes and the CBS Audience Network. Saturn is sponsoring. (Cynopsis 10/23)

I don’t know about the series because currently, all that exists on the site is a trailer, which doesn’t quite speak to me.  I do, however, commend CBS on making the subscribe-for-updates box central on the screen as the loss of repeat viewers seems to be a web series’ greatest barrier.  I don’t know that I am sold on shooting in HD either.  Seems a bit like an unnecessary cost at this point.

Amazon.com revised its forecast for the rest of the year, taking a more pessimistic view three months after having raised its revenue projections, even as the company reported Wednesday a 48% rise in profit on a 31% gain in revenue for the third quarter. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said the company had seen a recent slump in demand for items priced more than $1,000, adding that the online retailer was taking a cautious view because “all companies have limited visibility right now.” ClipSyndicate/Bloomberg (10/22) , The Wall Street Journal (10/23) , Financial Times (10/23) , The New York Times (10/22)

TiVo is expected to announce deals today with two distributors that will allow the DVR manufacturer to offer hundreds of movies to broadband subscribers. The pacts with CinemaNow and Jaman plug a major hole in TiVo’s on-demand offerings because they include Disney releases. The Hollywood Reporter (10/23)

Earlier this month News Corp. celebrated the three year anniversary of the acquisition of MySpace. Today, AOL does the same for the Weblogs, Inc. blog network they acquired in October 2005.  Since the acquisition, AOL says, the Weblogs, Inc. blogs (which include Engadget, TMZ, Download Squad, TUAW, Joystiq, Autoblog and others) have seen worldwide unique visitors climb nearly 1000% (122% annually, on average) and page views rise over 1,500% (154% annually, on average), according to August 2008 comScore Media Metrix. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/22/weblogs-inc-three-years-later-impressive-page-view-and-revenue-growth 10/22)

Influential online social music portal imeem has put itself up for sale hiring investment bank Montgomery & Co. to manage the proceedings, per paidcontent.org. Imeem has struck on demand streaming deals with all 4 major labels and has pushed out its service to several third party outlets but has since seen the launch of music themed services by larger rivals such as MySpace Music. (Cynopsis 10/23)

Google is depending on hedging against fluctuations in exchange rates to prevent international profits from Web search ads and YouTube videos from evaporating. The Internet giant used hedging to net a $34 million gain that helped offset potential negative effects to third-quarter revenue. (Iwantmedia 10/23, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=av9oPJ.sI87Y 10/22)

Digital distribution company Myvideorights.com has signed an exclusive deal with The Onion News Network to distribute its satirical video content across the UK, Europe and Asia during the lead up to the US Presidential election and beyond. The deal is meant to capitalize on unprecedented interest foreign audiences have shown in coverage of U.S. politics, particularly that which “takes the piss” out of its subjects. (Cynopsis 10/23)

Business networking startup LinkedIn is announcing today that it has raised another $22.7 million, on top of the $53 million D round it closed last June at a $1 billion valuation. The new round is a follow-on to the series D at the same valuation, bringing on strategic investors SAP, Goldman Sachs, and McGraw Hill. Existing investor Bessemer Venture Partners also participated. This brings the total capital LinkedIn has raised to just over $100 million. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/22/linkedin-announces-227-million-follow-on-round-from-sap-goldman-sachs-and-mcgraw-hill 10/22)

United Talent Agency’s new media studio 60Frames introduced a separate production label dubbed Red Band Industries to develop and produce edgier fare that may scare off mainstream advertisers, reports Mediaweek. (Cynopsis 10/23)

Comcast has announced a new plan to offer two tiers of wideband Internet service to more than 10 million homes and businesses. The tiers — Extreme 50, which boasts download speeds of up to 50 Mbps, and Ultra, with up to 22 Mbps — will be available in 10 major markets, or about 20% of the company’s service area, in the “next several months,” Comcast said. The Wall Street Journal (10/23) , Light Reading (10/22)

Hulu continued its climb up Nielsen Online’s VideoCensus rankings in Sept. reaching the #6 spot in the U.S. delivering over 142 million streams for the month. YouTube remains the mac daddy in online video with over 5.3 billion streams served. (Cynopsis 10/23)

Top 10 Online Web Brands Ranked by Total Streams for Sept. 2008
Brand                       Total Streams(000)  Unique Viewers (000)
YouTube                         5,354,392               81,881
Yahoo!                              264,266               29,908
Fox Interactive Media         242,444               19,258
MSN/Windows Live            164,776                10,980
Nickelodeon Kids & Family  162,971                 6,152
Hulu                                 142,261                 6,324
ESPN                                127,794                 8,434
CNN Digital Network          117,708                 9,451
MTV Networks Music            97,207                 4,762
Disney Online                      87,193                 9,146
Source: Nielsen Online, VideoCensus, includes progressive downloads, excludes video advertising