Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Online video joint venture Hulu will catch up to YouTube in U.S. ad sales despite having more than 10 times the unique user base (83 million vs. 6 million), according to a forecast from digital media research firm Screen Digest reported in the FT. Screen estimates YouTube will notch $100 million in U.S. ad sales this year, compared to $70 million for Hulu, while each will post $180 million in U.S. ad revenues in 2009. (Cynopsis 11/18)

Woooooooooow. Nice this is pretty frickin’ impressive for a site that was originally dubbed Clown Co by certain tech bloggers out there.

Jerry Yang is the $1.8 billion man. The stock market thinks Yahoo is worth that much more without Yang at the helm. That’s approximately how much the market capitalization of Yahoo’s stock went up this morning, with the first trade after last night’s announcement that Yang would be stepping down as CEO. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/18/yangs-stepping-down-adds-15-billion-to-yahoos-market-cap 11/18)

Mark Cuban, founder of HDNet and owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, has been charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission with insider trading. Cuban is accused of selling 600,000 shares of Mamma.com in June 2004 using non-public information. (Iwantmedia 11/18, http://money.cnn.com/2008/11/17/news/newsmakers/cuban_insider_trading/index.htm 11/17)

Intel is powering a crowd sourcing initiative on Facebook asking any and all animators to contribute to a new computer-generated animated short slated for theatrical release, to be produced and directed by former Sony Pictures Digital President Yair Landau. Intel has provided the necessary tools and 3-D models for animators to strut their stuff; creators whose content is selected for the film will be awarded a new Dell desktop PC weekly. An international jury of animation experts will select the shots to be considered for the film but Landau will have the final say as to which submissions make the final cut. “Live Music,” the name of the CGI short, is a love story between Riff, a rock n’ roll guitar, and Vanessa, a classical violin. (Cynopsis 11/18)

CBS’s radio division is quietly rolling out its Play.it music streaming service, which allows listeners to create customized stations, play artist-themed stations or listen to over 340 traditional channels from CBS Radio and AOL Radio. Play.it runs off of a catalog of about 1.3 million songs. (Iwantmedia 11/18, http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/11/cbs-unveils-per.html 11/17)

Crowdsourcing marketing start-up Passenger is powering an invite-only online community generationbenz.com for Mercedes-Benz to enable younger consumers to interact and collaborate with the company’s brand. Mercedes will be able to elicit feedback and perspectives on its vehicles, study brand positioning and socio-cultural trends, preview upcoming advertising and marketing campaigns and engage in live discussions with gen Y users. (Cynopsis 11/18)

Time Warner’s struggling AOL is kicking off a U.S. roadshow to promote its 75-plus Web properties, such as Asylum and Moviefone. The goal: convince the advertising community to spend their dollars on its sites. According to AOL exec Bill Wilson: “Now we are a media company.” (Iwantmedia 11/18, http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081117/FREE/811179932/1040 11/17)

Mobile content studio Fun Little Movies launched a new ad supported series satirizing environmental issues (perhaps timed to coincide with NBC Universal’s 2nd annual Green week.) Mad TV’s Debra Skelton and Goodnight Burbank’s Hayden Black play the anchors of No News Is Good News. O.J. trial star Kato Kaelin camps it up as an investigative reporter in the first episode, seeking to find out who really killed the electric car. (Cynopsis 11/18)

Online comedy portal RooftopComedy is partnering with legendary New York City comedy club Comic Strip Live to record and distribute nightly comedy performances. Stand-up acts such as Robert Hawkins’ riff on Gay Pride parades will be available on RooftopComedy.com and syndicated out to a number of partner outlets including Nokia, Motorola UK, iTunes, Current TV, Hulu and Dailymotion. (Cynopsis 11/18)

During the last two quarters, cable companies have accounted for more than 70% of net broadband additions, about 900,000 more than their telecom counterparts, according to a new survey by the Leichtman Research Group. Overall, cable firms now provide Internet access to 36.5 million homes, while the telecoms have about 30.2 million broadband subscribers, the study reported. Multichannel News (11/17)