Cookie Jar Entertainment Launching Hulu for Kids Site; Jaroo.com will kick off with 50 TV series digitize a library of 6,000 episodes. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Blinkx Issues Shares Worth $8.1 Million; company turns to stock market after losses associated with infrastructure deployment grew. (paidContent)

Break Partners with Southern Comfort for Social Sportz Net; web series will show dudes how to plan holiday parties. (MediaWeek)

The Colbert Report Sponsors U.S. Speedskating Team; “Colbert Nation” will be on the team’s uniforms. (Associated Press)

Sorenson Launches Squeeze 6; new video and encoding software promises higher quality video and faster speeds. (release)

EchoStar: Sling Brings TV Everywhere; new ad campaign from the satellite company aimed at cable MSOs claims simplicity for distributing content. (Multichannel News)

CIMM Lauches Web Site; the Nielsen rival debuts cimm-us.org and prepping to release RFPs this week. (Broadcasting & Cable)

Microsoft Drops Family Guy Sponsorship; Window 7 will no longer be sponsoring an episode of the cartoon after the company realized the show is pretty… off-color. (MediaMemo)

AT&T Sponsors Vevo; telco enters into a branding and marketing agreement with the upcoming music video site. (paidContent)

In-Stat: Disney’s Keychest Will Beat Others to Market; though the research firm says mouse house’s digital content access service will take time to catch on with consumers. (Video Business)

Blinkx Launches Music Video Search Tool; Blinkx Music has indexed more than 33,000 hours of music vids from roughly 10,000 artists. (CNET)

Video:   “Web 2.0 in D2L – Protopage“

I found this video while I was searching for Protopage tutorials.  The Colorado Community College System will be switching from Blackboard to Desire2Learn next semester, so I thought it would be a good idea to keep track of this video.  I found quite a few videos about using web 2.0 applications in D2L using Blinkx, a video search engine.

You may find searching for videos on the Internet to be difficult. Yes, the various popular search engines can be helpful and you always have youtube  as a place to find videos. But, there are more sites than YouTube! Some of them you may find more useful. Here are a couple of video search engines:

CastTV.com
I like this site because its “goal” is to index all videos on the Internet. Lofty, yes, but is a good engine that crawls many sites for videos. You can use the search box and type a tv show, person, topic, etc and get a standard results list. Or, you can use the tabs underneath the search box to narrow your search. The menu on the left-side of the results list gives you more options for limiting the search to cost, source, genres, etc. Each results list shows title, cost, a brief summary and running time.

Hello fellow PhilaTuders! I’m back. Did you miss me? Probably not, but that’s OK, you’re very busy, and likewise, so am I, but enough with excuses. There’s nothing worse than a blogger who complains that she’s too busy to post, right? Right. Anyway, Phila Dude has done such a good job with keeping up the posting. I mean, it’s summer, we want to be outside—though I haven’t been outside so much as chained to my desk working—but he’s done it: covering everything from the Phillies’ magical season, the tragic passing of Jim Johnson, and now the surprising and jaw-dropping signing of Michael Vick to the Eagles—seriously, jaw dropped and was like “Shut the front door!” Stacy London, What Not to Wear? Anyone? Anyone? I like to watch make-over shows on TLC, get over it—but I digress.

My first reaction to the signing was Good job Eagles…Way to bring in unnecessary drama. Do we really need this? Do we? Are we still in masochistic withdrawal from the franchise killing T.O.? We already have a great quarterback who doesn’t kill dogs, so why do we need Vick? But then I thought, wait Delphea, you need to work on your karma, so I thought back to a piece I heard on Morning Edition the other day. Tony Dungy, former Super Bowl-winning coach of the Indianapolis Colts (full disclosure, the only other team in the NFL that I actively root for), said that if he were still the coaching, he would sign Vick.

I’m not going to go into the whole story. You can listen for yourself here: Morning Edition NPR.org, but basically Tony and Michael met 5 years back and bonded over a love for fishing. They even talked about getting a fishing trip together—a trip that Dungy always wonders might have prevented Vick from going down the wrong path. Anyway, Tony, who has left the NFL to pursue the ministry and mentoring, went to visit Michael during his last month in prison. There he began to understand how and why Vick got into dog fighting. Tony does not condone what Michael did, but believes that he has served his time, and that perhaps it’s time for a second chance.

The thing that stuck out most to me from the interview was that he relates that although signing a player like Vick may bring distraction to an organization, a strong team who believes in second chances will be able to do it. If there is any such team, it is definitely the Eagles. I can only hope that Andy Reid is ready to be the on-field mentor to Vick that Dungy would be if he were still coaching.

OK, back to summer. Need to catch up on Mad Men before the premiere tomorrow—yes, I’ve jumped on the bandwagon—Be like me: watch the first two seasons here: Blinkx.

Not sure if anyone else has noticed this but I was checking out Microsoft’s new Bing search engine when I noticed the font of the “b” in Bing looked very familiar with another search site.  So I surfed over to Blinkx and whaddaya know, they are almost the same… check out the two favicons side by side.

Surely the design team could have found a different font to ensure no clashes… after all, there are not that many search engines out there to clash with.  Oops.

In the digital age the commercial value of content is increasingly important.

Those of us who download each episode of Grey’s Anatomy almost immediately after its release (did you SEE the finale of Season five?!) have no reason to watch the show on normal TV. This means that we will never see the adverts that various companies have paid for, which means that these companies are losing revenue and are therefore less likely to invest in television ads in the future. Those of us who still watch normal TV can use our PVR decoders to fast-forward through the ads anyway.

Of course, in a developing country like South Africa where so few citizens have PVR or internet access this is not a crisis, yet. But the industry needs to think about the next generation now to avoid being caught unawares later.

So, TV executives have to re-conceptualise traditional advertising models according to the audience’s changing consumption behaviour. Future South African audiences are going to be able to customise and interact with the programmes they watch – they should be able to do the same with advertising.

blinkx is an innovative technology that has already figured out how to achieve this.

Calm and collected: Suranga Chandratillake, British man of Sri Lankan descent and creator of blinkx.

The secret is in the search technology: with normal search engines, users type in a word and the programme scans its archives for content which contains that word. blinkx has incorporated elements of patented conceptual search, speech recognition and video analysis software within its search function, making it especially efficient at finding and analysing video content.

The best part is that in addition to identifying specific content blinkx is also able to find and match relevant advertising. Advertisers also have different options as to how ads are placed in online video.

Be honest, if an ad for a range of hair prouducts popped up here you would click through.

It’s an idea which might just work because it optimises the online medium to a greater extent than previous models. Consumers will encounter advertising that is directly linked to their video content and therefore relevant to them, and they will be able to interact with advertising on their own terms.

We are increasingly seeing product placement within popular TV shows as an alternative means of advertising but this is a somewhat subtler method. blinkx takes this to the next level by enabling online video viewers to take action and click on products for more information.

Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) in 30 Rock would be lost without her MacBook Pro.

American Idol judges love Coke.

Of course the other option is to be like Nandos and make your ads so awesome that people watch them online for fun.The Julius Malema puppet ad has been viewed on The Times website 17 881 times, making it the website’s second most popular video ever! Click here if you haven’t seen it yet.

It will be interesting to see if and how the South African advertising industry will begin thinking more seriously about the online medium.

Wait, am I on drugs? Did I miss the memo that American Idol Rat Pack night actually meant Opposite Day? Cuz maybe that would explain why: Paula Abdul

The Easiest Home Business Ever will as of now be marketed through Clickbank. If you have never heard of Clickbank it is very simple to register. Simply follow this link http://freagle1.jmap.clickbank.net to become a member.

Once you have registered with Clickbank, you can get all the resources you need to refer the EHBE program from the following link:

http://www.easiesthomebusinessever.com/ehbe_cb_banners.aspx.

The Great News about this affiliation is your potential earnings have increased significantly now that we are with Clickbank. Not only is the asking price higher, but you will receive 50% of BOTH the upfront and the recurring payments.

Please also note that if anyone you referred through the 1ShoppingCart links purchases the program using that link, you will still be credited with the sale.

Please contact me if you have any questions what so ever.

Regards
Darren
Click Here!

I have just received the highly anticipated – Easiest Home Business Ever.

If you can remember my earlier post when I stated my goal for the next 12 months was to create ”tehbe” (50k), well I’m feeling alot more confident about that now.

I have just looked through module 1 which has pdf files backed up by video’s which lead you through the pdf documents how to start to create an online income.

I’m not going to ramble on to much here about it.  Simply click on this link CLICK HERE and read for yourself. 

And what’s even better there’s no risk, if you don’t like it or it’s not for you there’s a 100% money back guarantee.  Can’t ask for more than that.

And you won’t believe the price, I still can’t believe it.  Anyway take a look.

May see you on the other side!

Darren

http://tinyurl.com/dgjmae

http://www.easiesthomebusinessever.com

http://twitter.com/tehbe

http://tiny.cc/B6KGE

Okay ever since I’ve started on my journey (read post #1 ) I’ve spent countless hours trying to figure out the most simplest facits of using the main social sites like Twitter, Facebook etc.  

If I was getting paid by the hour I’d be on about $1.50 an hour (that will definately change however!) 

So this post is about,  you guessed it twitter – sending messages.  I don’t want you to waste the same time I did!  You don’t have to.

There are three different ways of sending messages/posting on Twitter.

The first one everyone should know of and that is the regular post.  That’s the one where you type in a message, 140 charactors or less, and press update, and is viewable by all the people following you.

The following message types are the ones I initially had trouble with.

The next type of message is a reply.  Example being, if you type in a regular message, like above, people may reply to your post.  If they do you’ll see your username with the symbol @ before it when someone replies to your post.

Now, if you wish to reply to other people the same way, you simply type @ and then the recipients username directly after that.  These types of messages are viewable by everyone who is following you and obviously the person you are replying to.

Lastly there’s a Twitter direct message or Twitter DM.  If you want to send a Twitter private message to someone that no one else can see, you can send a Twitter direct message.  To do so, simply type the letters dm with the recipients user name. 

Be sure to leave a gap between the dm and the recipients username.  You can only send direct messages to people you are following also.

You can also send a direct message by clicking on your “Direct Messages” tab which will take you to the Twitter screen below.

Once there you simply click on the drop down tab in between where it says “Send a direct message” (See pic below).  This will show all the people you are following.  Then click on the person you intend sending the message too.

Then all you need to do is type your message, 140 charactors or less, and then press the send button.

I hope this post has been helpful.  Just remember try to not waste your time working these things out for yourself.  The good thing about the internet is most likely someone has already worked it out for you.  Simply find the imformation and use it!.

Regards

Darren
http://tinyurl.com/dgjmae
http://www.easiesthomebusinessever.com
http://twitter.com/tehbe
http://tiny.cc/B6KGE

 
Guys how cool is this?.
I now have my own 3D apartment and I can add as many LCD’s as I won’t with all my favorite youtube video’s on.  If you have your own youtube video you could add those to your LCD in your own 3D apartment.
So, Imagine adding your favourite YouTube video to a 3D LCD Television in your own virtual world.
With ExitReality, you can add any YouTube video to a 3D flat panel television and put it into your very own virtual world to share with friends and add some fun to your space.
How do I add a YouTube Video into my 3D web place? Three Simple Steps:
Step One: Once you have the ExitReality browser open at your 3D webspace, this could be your website, MySpace page or any other social networking page, click on the search tab on the top right hand side of your screen in the ExitReality toolbar.

Step Two: Enter the keywords ‘youtube TV’ into the search box. The customisable TV will appear in the search results. Simply drag it into your 3D space.

Step Three: Add the YouTube URL link into the field provided and then click done.
Now you have your very own LCD TV playing your favourite YouTube video.
Use the ‘Edit’ function to move, rotate and size your LCD television to how you like in your 3D space.

ExitReality supports Adobes Interactive Flash which means you have the same interactive controls in 3D as you have in 2D such as volume adjustment for your YouTube video.

I hope this helps?.
Control yourself this is addictive!
Imagine the possibilities?.
Cheers
Darren
http://tinyurl.com/dgjmae
http://www.easiesthomebusinessever.com
http://twitter.com/tehbe
http://tiny.cc/B6KGE

You need to take a look at this,  Lots of fun.  It’s called exitreality. 

It is a virtual world in 3D.  After downloading and choosing your avatar (a 3D person of your choice) you can then walk around and talk and meet other avatar’s in this complete 3D virtual world environment.  I actually went to the Warner Brothers Cinema and sat in the cinema and watched a couple of latest release movie trailers.  How cool!

Also you can get your own 3D apartment that you can furnish to your 3D taste where you can invite friends to come over and chat and socialize.  You can also decorate your apartment with “gifted ” products from 3D stores found within exitreality.  So, if you happen to be in a store and like a product,  you can ask for that product to be gifted to you so it can be  displayed in your 3D apartment.  Now if a friend who visits your apartment looks at that product and clicks on it he will see which shop it comes from and if he wants to purchase that item he can.  Excellent concept for venders. 

Now if you can have your own 3D apartment then you can also have your own 3D store/shop.  Same things apply to your shop, you can decorate it and upload pictures of your products that you are selling.  Customers have the option of interacting with staff and clicking on your products.

No real need to imagine this techology anymore, it’s here. 

Take a look it’s great fun

Cheers

Darren
http://www.1shoppingcart.com/app/?af=959480
http://www.easiesthomebusinessever.com
http://twitter.com/tehbe
http://tiny.cc/B6KGE

These days the pathway to fame and fortune begins online, and your fans are your financiers.  Stop shopping your script old school!  No better way to lollygag in a down economy than to create a killer franchise.  So this one’s for you my friends, the animator, screenwriter, and big personality…it’s never been easier to create your masterpiece and sell it to your fans.  To get in the game simply follow the 22/22/2 rule, make it funny, put it up, talk to your fans, and sell them tees…

So you ask, what is the 22/22/2 rule?
I made that up  but it is the minimum pitch you’ll want to approach any video site with:  20-22 episodes, 22 minutes each to serve up on long form platforms, divisible into 2-4 minute segments to run on short form platforms with 15s preroll.  Then create an outrageously funny 30 second clip of it to get on Funny or Die and StupidVideos.

What’s selling right now?
Funny is selling big to the M 18-34 gamer/geeker humor and niche…it’s also smart to story around product categories advertised online.

Secrets to making it viral…
Who knows but you have to be superfast to capture attention… Make it timely with a laugh out loud title and thumbnail.  Simple story arc, three act structure, begin with chase, end with question.  Leverage brands whenever possible.

Put it up…like now!

I.  Amazon
Yup, you could be selling on Amazon next to big titles in minutes, and have a pathway into the living room via AVOD via TiVo and XBLA. Not sure why Amazon’s CreateSpace is the best kept secret in the industry but it is how you’re going to make your money.  They publish books, CDs, and DVDs on demand and send shorts 20m+ to AVOD.  Have your friends, family and fans post five star reviews the moment the site goes up and in the body of the review have them liken your work to a current bestseller and voila! you’re on your way to being optimized in Amazon’s recommendations engine.

II.  Blip.tv, Metacafe, Revver, imeem, Atom, Crackle
You can also make money on Blip.tv, Metacafe, Revver and Atom with a certain number of views and ratings.  Keep in mind, noone is getting rich off of CPM, mostly you can expect a penny per play, compare that to split on a $1.99 download where a content producer might walk away with a $1 per download. But Atom is owned by Viacom and has its own AtomTV Monday nights at 2am on Comedy Central and relationships with V Cast, etc. so if you’re stuff is awesome and you get voted to the top, you could land a non-exclusive rev-share deal or buyout.  Crackle, owned by Sony, will also buy the good stuff and acquire talent for its original programming via contests, with the grand prize being a pitch meeting with Sony executives.

III.  iTunes, Netflix, Hulu 
Yes, it’s true, for iTunes you do need to go through an approved distributor.  They have been villified for this process but Apple does this for good reason.  There’s a whole ingestion role that the approved distributor serves and even this approved distributor has to go to 3rd party before Apple can start its QC to see if the title is a fit. If you have a top talent like Mark Ruffalo and its a great film, they’ll want it but plan no later than September to submit it to get it on for Thanksgiving.  Everyone rushes their titles on for the biggest download buying time, the holidays, which starts before Thanksgiving.  And you will also want to want to window.  First pay download for the holidays, then subscription and free streaming rev-share around Valentine’s Day.  The great news is that these approved distributors all have relationships with Netflix and Hulu, which not only is the premier destination for premium content it’s also the largest and most respected syndicator sending its player out to 60+ structured partners including AOL, Blinkx, Break, Cinemanow, Cooliris, DailyMotion, Fancast, Flixster, Glam, Metacafe, MSN, Movielink, MySpace, Sling, TVGuide, Yahoo!….  These distributors also have relationships with Joost, Veoh, TV.com, Jaman, B-Side, Sezmi, Vudu, soon XBLA, ZillionTV, and can be very creative in monetizing the properties via soundtracks and mobile wallpaper.  Great you say, who are these majestic people and how can I meet them?  Well, therein lies the rub.  They’re very busy culling through referrals from Apple etc and have limited bandwidth.  So you need to be vetted by someone who knows them or try www.indieflix.com who will pitch award winners or festival selections.  Luckily it’s easy these days to secure festival credentials via Amazon’s  Withoutabox who for one fee and application submits your film to as many festivals as you like.  How cool is that! Withoutabox will also submit your work to Amazon’s IMDb for bonus promotion.  All this said, even a million views is not going to result in much money.  Even with a $45CPM+ on the premium sites, after everyone’s take you might wind up with less than $2,000.  Netflix with its lump sum buyout per term is usually the next best payout after iTunes but a Hulu deal gives vast exposure and legitimacy and should be as aggressively sought after as iTunes and Netflix.

IV.  $$$ YouTube, MySpace, DailyMotion, Break….
You can monetize your content on YouTube as well as the other UGC sites (DailyMotion, Metacafe..) but your stuff has to be high production value with brand, talent and/or strong following that advertisers are targeting, and you need to be in the know to pitch that business development executive and secure a content partner agreement.  For YouTube specifically, you need to have original videos suitable for online streaming, express permission to use and monetize all av uploaded, and you regularly upload videos that are viewed by thousands of YouTube users.  If you meet that criteria, you can get started now by clicking here.  So build your network and use the UGC platforms to aggregate your fan base.  Tubemogul can consolidate your uploads and provides detailed analytics on what is being watched where.

V.  Soundtrack too 
It’s actually very easy to get your soundtrack on iTunes, and sell into the long tail via Tunecore, IODA, CDBaby, Napster, eMusic, and Annie’s List.  And Pandora will take over the transom submissions and index your soundtrack to play along like artists and link to your iTunes and Amazon shopping carts.   Imeem pays revshare and also slipstreams indies into playlists of like artists.  So when creating your soundtrack keep in mind that if it sounds like Radiohead, it might play alongside Radiohead and in turn have a shot at acquiring their fans.

Fans are Financiers, Love Them!!
Your fans can make or break you, and all they want is some engagement, some interaction.   At minimum, create an email list, let them know where you’re screening, invite them to the parties, deliver them brand experiences, and set up a blog so they can post their comments.  Twitter is a must and Facebook (MySpace for the soundtrack) but very time intensive if you’re not into it.  Enlist a dedicated fan to help you keep it up.  Bring them onto your team.  Give them credit as an officer on your Facebook fan page.   For your other fans, post clips of the videos on YouTube without soundtrack and invite them to mash it up giving prizes to the one with the most views like a cameo in one of the videos.  Then create cool merchandise on CafePress or Zazzle and invite them to buy it to fund your work.  You will make more money selling tees than selling the content.  The content builds the brand, and your dedicated fans will evangelize the brand and pay for the brand experience.  Cultivating loyalty is very important and extremely satisfying to your audience.  Give them trivia.  Ask their opinions and advice.  Make them part of your journey.  Love them and you will be richly rewarded.

DTV Delay-related News; according to Nielsen, more than 5.8 million U.S. homes (5.1 percent) are unprepared for the DTV switch (Nielsen Wire); the Consumer Electronics Association warns that the recent push back to the DTV switch could result in a shortage of converter boxes. (Broadcasting & Cable)

Universal Music Group Can’t Sue Veoh’s Investors; judge throws the part of UMG’s complaint that accuses Shelter Capital, Spark Capital and Eisner’s Tornante Company of “vicarious copyright infringement” and “inducement of copyright infringement.” (TechCrunch)

A Breakdown of Super Bowl Ads Online; 4,000 clips of ads from the big game have been uploaded and have received more than 75 million views. (Visible Measures)

SAG Feud Goes to Court; drama over the ousting of the union’s former executive director and chief negotiator continues, judge denies SAG president’s request for a restraining order against the union and the national board. (The New York Times)

PlayOn Releases Beta; software moves Hulu, CNN and other content from Windows PC to TV-connected boxes like Xbox 360, PS3 and other DLNA and UPnP devices. (Zatz Not Funny!)

Jaman Gets Indie Distributor E1’s Titles; deal will expand movie rental company’s library with roughly 3,000 feature films, documentaries and TV shows. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Blinkx Changes Up its Homepage; new buttons such as “Entertain Me” and “Inform Me” deliver automated entertainment and news streams. (Contentinople)

TV on the web. Find it, watch it.

Bobbie Johnson, Guardian Tech on some new playlist features for the Blinkx video search service:

Blinkx ‘inform me’ service

Some people are very excited about Boxee, which gives users a single interface to access all the photos, video and music on their hard drive

“on a laptop or connected to an HDTV, boxee gives you a true entertainment experience to enjoy your movies, TV shows, music and photos, as well as streaming content from websites like Hulu, Netflix, ABC, CBS, Comedy Central, Last.fm, and flickr.”

Works with BBC iPlayer. Includes social networking features: Twitter, share with friends.

Quick introduction to Boxee on Vimeo

http://www.boxee.tv/

New York Times article

Two updates on things I wrote about in previous posts. First of all, The New York Times picked up the discussion on the use of You Tube as a search engine, or better yet, as the NYT calls it, as a reference tool. They wrote a very nice article (published in print on January 18th) which summarizes the different things that were already mentioned about this phenomenon in the blogosphere. The article also mentions Blinkx, a video search engine, which is actually very cool and indexes various online video platforms (YouTube, MySpace, Google Video etc.) so check it out. Funny though, how an established (print) medium like The New York Times uses the blogosphere to retrieve its content on current issues….

The second update is on some new evidence for the, what I have now rebaptised as, NIN-model (sorry Radiohead), based on the new digital Maecenic (now community based) culture, or as an article in Techdirt calls it, the turning-your-fans-into-promoters model. At the Monty Python’s YouTube channel, videos from Britains best comedy show ever, are streamed online, in High Quality versions. From the site:

“No more of those crap quality videos you’ve been posting. We’re giving you the real thing – HQ videos delivered straight from our vault. What’s more, we’re taking our most viewed clips and uploading brand new HQ versions. And what’s even more, we’re letting you see absolutely everything for free. So there! But we want something in return. None of your driveling, mindless comments. Instead, we want you to click on the links, buy our movies & TV shows and soften our pain and disgust at being ripped off all these years.”

They have of course linked to Amazon, where you can buy their DVD’s directly, and yes, it worked again, helping them climb to No. 2 on Amazon’s Movies & TV bestsellers list.

Way to go Pythons!

In the world of on demand content and the fragmented world of digital platforms, it is fairly important for search to work properly for Videos.  After simply just playing with the idea for quite sometime, some of the big names in the industry are really beginning to crack it.

YouTube has its own way of searching for video files that benefits from not only the tags but also google’s search intelligence.  TiVo just recently annoucned their new search function.  Fairly comprehensive though, it only allows you to search through data that sits “outside” of a video file. Not the most cutting edge way of video search, but given its TiVo the usage of this is likely to widerspread and at least it recognises the need for a must have function for the future of Video.

How does the search currently work in Video? Well the simplest way is to search for “tags” associated with a video file, or search for terms within the video file names. Now that is not very effective, as the tags and the name cant possibly fully describe whats inside a video file or in the content, can it? To offset this, some of the set-top box manufacturers including TiVo search through “closed captions” (subtitles for instance) or the Electronic Program Guide data alongside a video file to search for the contents of the video file. It would allow you to even search for scenes with famous quotes from the movies (The BigMac scene from Pulp Fiction for instance). Whilst very useful, its still a very 2008 way of searching for video, and a very cumbersome one that too.

Then there is Blinkx (www.blinkx.com). They have a pretty impressive video portal that actually searches through the contents of a video file, and delivers you the search results. For example you can look for a particular word and see how many video files are returned. A much better schema for search then “tags”. They seem to have been looking for opportunity in the area of direct to consumer, but in my opinion their biggest opportunity is in franchising their technology direct to businesses like TiVo.  Not sure if they are already doing it, but they are the next generation of search in video, and can really help move the game forward.

The more the amount of content available to watch digitally, the more the need for search. The good news is, that the solutions are here today. Only if the industry can push those forward.

The 7-O-7 Tech Shop
Our tech shop continues to be in a lukewarm state, though it expects to get some hot stuff in the coming weeks. Here are the 7 offers of the week (Dec. 29, ’08 – Jan. 4, ’09). For home buyers, HP introduced MediaSmart Server and  LG Network Blu-ray Disc Players will provide streaming entertainment from CinemaNow, YouTube, and Netflix. Blinkx, a video search engine, has introduced Un-roll Unit for online video market. Mobile users: Trainerpack application for iPhone is for figure-conscious women and F-Secure offers to protect your smartphone from “SMS Curse of Silence.” Then Surf Canyon has released version 2.0 of its search enhancement application. For enterprise users, Cfengine brings a self-healing solution for data centers…More

Gijrath Media Group Could Interest Glam Media — Glam Media, the California-based lifestyle media company, would consider discussing a partial acquisition of Dutch peer Gijrath Media Group (GMG), a company
source said. Joint ventures could also be a possibility, the source added.
“We built out our luxury channel not too long ago, so [this] would
definitely be an area that is of interest to us”, the source said. “International [targets are] definitely on the radar in terms of acquisition potential,” the source said when asked about GMG. A sector banker lent credence to the source’s argument, pointing out that the groups could use each other’s content interchangeably in their publications. Other potential US-based suitors for GMG could include Modern Luxury, another American lifestyle media group, a second sector banker suggested. In reaction, GMG’s owner and chief executive officer Yves Gijrath said he “could be open to” approaches by Glam Media or other players. He added that he would have to become better acquainted with Glam Media’s operations before commenting further on the matter. GMG will have 100 full-time employees in 2009. Gijrath confirmed news reports that the recent Amsterdam edition of GMG’s “Millionaire Fair” had revenues of around EUR 200m, according to preliminary figures. He declined to provide further financials. Earlier, Gijrath said the Amsterdam-based company would consider a minority stake sale to an industry player to stimulate growth. Gijrath specified that an external investor must bring more than capital. GMG is also open to joint ventures with industry players, especially outside the Netherlands, he said. A player with a strong profile in the Internet sphere, or a niche player such as Conde Nast, would be an appropriate suitor, Gijrath said. Conde Nast, however, may be scaling back its M&A activity, one sector banker said. He cited the recent dismissal of Kourosh Karimkhany, vice president of corporate development at its sister company, CondeNet, as a signal to this effect. Source: mergermarket.

Hulu CEO: More Global Moves Planned For ‘09 — In just a year, Hulu has morphed into what is arguably the most successful television
network online. The co-venture of NBC Universal and News Corp.’s Fox
already is the sixth-most-viewed online video hub, providing insights into
how consumers transfer their television viewing preferences and habits to
the Web. Here’s what Hulu CEO Jason Kilar told MediaPost about that future.

Social Media Wins In Marketers’ ‘09 Plans — Marketers are directing their 2009 budgets toward content, custom media and social media initiatives, according to a new study from online marketing resource and vendor-matching tool Junta42. More than half–56%–of marketing and publishing decision-makers plan to increase their content marketing spending next year, Junta42 found after surveying its community of corporate marketers and publishing/agency professionals.

Britain Introduces Movie-Like Ratings For Web Sites — The British
government is looking into rating Web sites in a similar manner to the way
movies are rated by the Motion Picture Association of America in the U.S.
Britain’s Minister For Culture Andy Burnham told The Daily Telegraph that
the government was planning to negotiate age ratings for English language
sites with the administration of President-elect Barack Obama. “The more we
seek international solutions to this stuff — the U.K. and the U.S. working
together — the more that an international norm will set an industry norm,”
Burnham said. “This is an area that is really now coming into full focus.”

Online Advertising To Weather Recession — It matters little what sector you’re in: 2008 was a lousy year for most businesses, particularly
advertising. And if you believe the forecasters, 2009 isn’t supposed to be
much better, either. Just last week, Barclays Capital lowered its
projection for advertising in the U.S. to a negative 10% next year, with
every single traditional media sector receiving a major hit. By comparison,
advertising fell just 1.9% in the 1991 recession, and 6.2% in 2001.
However, while Barclays and others expect the rest of advertising to get
torched, online advertising is still expected to grow between 6 and 10%
next year over 2008 levels. In fact, according to BusinessWeek, advertising
may see the kind of seismic shift next year that is now bringing about
unprecedented changes to the financial and automotive sectors. “The
harbinger of advertising’s radical transformation is the sustained growth
of online,” the report says, noting while the rest of the sector takes a
big hit, “online is holding its own.”

Bonnier Eyeing Six Possible Targets Within Digital Media — Bonnier, the Swedish privately-owned media company, is looking to expand within digital media via acquisitions, according to Svenska Dagbladet. The Swedish daily cited Sara Ohrvall, director at Bonnier, who said that the company needs to grow via acquisitions, especially within new business areas which will help the company move forward quickly. The paper reported that Bonnier is currently eying six possible targets and that most of them are digital media companies and that the acquisitions are to occur both in Sweden and internationally with a focus on the US. The item noted that Bonnier has a turnover of SEK 30bn (EUR 3.1bn). Source: mergermarket.

NYTCo Lays Groundwork To Raise Funds Through Debt, Equity — With a $400 million revolving credit line expiring in May, the New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) continues to put its fund-raising ducks in a row. The latest: an SEC filing setting the stage to secure debt or raise equity. The terms in the prospectus are as vague as possible—an unspecified amount, indeterminate price—and meant to allow the company to move fast should it go this route. Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis explains: ‘In these difficult markets, the company wants to ensure that it has maximum
flexibility and, accordingly, is filing a shelf that would permit it to
offer both debt and equity.” The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO) filed a similar prospectus in November for possible debt securities.

Blinkx Debuts ‘Un-Roll’ Streaming Video Ad Unit — In the ongoing pursuit for the killer Web video ad, video search engine blinkx has introduced a new ad unit that allows users to engage with a brand continuously throughout the duration of a streaming video. The Un-roll unit, as the company has dubbed it, was developed in-house by blinkx in response to the industry’s need for an alternative format to traditional pre- and post-roll ads.

Arrington: January Spending To ‘Fall Off A Cliff’ — The U.S. may have been in recession for a year now, but TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington says the fact is that most Internet-base companies haven’t seen their revenues drop yet. Amazon, for example, recently recorded its “best ever” holiday sales period. Of course all that’s about to change for content sites, he says,
starting this week. “Display advertising revenue is going to fall of a
cliff in January according to a number of content sites I’ve spoken with
who rely on advertising for revenue,” Arrington says. One sales exec said
that sales through December remained strong as advertisers used up their
marketing budgets, but “there are few buyers for this next fiscal quarter,
and those few that are buying are looking for steep discounts.”

Digging In To MySpace And Facebook’s (Projected) Slump In Ad Sales — Earlier this month, eMarketer lowered its social media ad spending outlook for 2008 through 2013, with revised forecasts for News Corp.‘s MySpace and Facebook. In an update, the online research firm offers details for why the two nets will take in less money this year: Slower growth overall at FIM: eMarketer lowered its MySpace ad revenue forecast for 2008 by more than 22 percent—from $755 million to $585 million—partly because of slowed revenue growth at parent company Fox Interactive Media (NYSE: NWS) (FIM). Over the course of News Corp.‘s past fiscal year (which includes half of 2007 and half of 2008) FIM’s year-over-year revenue growth sputtered from 87 percent at the end of Q2, to 55 percent in Q3, to just 23 percent in Q4. The downward trend continued in the company’s most recent earnings report: for the quarter ended September 30, 2008, FIM’s revenues were up just 17 percent year-over-year, and eMarketer expects the trend to continue. Just don’t tell that to MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe: at the Reuters Media Summit he said that the social net hadn’t really seen “any impact” from the financial crunch and that he expected revenues to grow next year.

Internet Tops Newspapers As News Source — The Internet is now the most popular source of news after TV, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, which released its year-end roundup of news media consumption last week. While TV is still king of the hill, its steady
decline in the face of Internet competition bodes ill in the long term.

ComScore: First Drop In Online Holiday Sales Since 2001 — E-commerce sales fell 3% this holiday season, marking the first drop since 2001, according to data released by comScore. The Web measurement firm attributed the falloff to five less shopping days in 2008 between Thanksgiving and Christmas and the impact of the recession on consumer spending. ComScore had predicted sales from Nov. 1 to Dec. 23 would be flat to last year, at $26.3 billion. The total came in shy, at $25.5 billion.

2008: Worst VC-Backed Liquidity Year Since 2003 — With no initial public offerings (IPOs) and just $3.9 billion generated via mergers and
acquisitions (M&As) of 65 venture-backed companies in the fourth quarter,
2008 proved to be the worst year in terms of liquidity for U.S. venture
capitalists since the post-tech-bust doldrums of 2003, according to
official statistics released today by Dow Jones VentureSource (
http://www.venturecapital.dowjones.com). Overall, U.S. venture-backed
companies generated $24.1 billion in liquidity through IPOs and M&As in
2008, down 58% from the $57.6 billion in liquidity produced in 2007. Just
seven companies completed public offerings in 2008, raising $551 million —
a far cry from the $6.8 billion generated through the public listings of 76
companies in 2007 and the lowest totals recorded since VentureSource began tracking the industry in 1992.

Lee Enterprises Says Does Not have Sufficient Cash Flows To Meet Both Its Requirements For 2009 Operations And Repayment Of Pulitzer Notes — In its Form 10-K filed on 31 December, Lee Enterprises made the following disclosure: The Company generated cash flows in 2008 sufficient to reduce net debt by USD 102,225,000, pay dividends totaling USD 32,573,000 and acquire shares of its Common Stock in the amount of USD 19,483,000. The Company does not have sufficient cash flows to meet both its requirements for 2009 operations and repayment of the Pulitzer Notes. 2009 principal payments required under the Credit Agreement totaling USD 142,500,000 are expected to exceed the Company’s cash flows available for such payments. As a result, the Company expects to utilize a portion of its capacity under its revolving credit facility to fund a portion of the 2009 principal payments required. At September 28, 2008, the Company had USD 207,000,000 outstanding under the revolving credit facility, and after consideration of the 2009 Amendments, letters of credit and other commitments, has approximately USD 162,000,000 available for future use. Principal payments under the Credit Agreement totaling USD 166,250,000 are due in 2010. The Company expects to utilize the remainder of its capacity under its revolving credit facility to fund a portion of the 2010 principal payments required. The Pulitzer Notes mature in April 2009. The Company is actively engaged in discussions with the Noteholders, and to the extent their approval may also be required, the Lenders under the Credit Agreement, to extend or refinance the Pulitzer Notes. The Company has also initiated discussions with the Lenders related to changes to the Credit Agreement to maintain sufficient long-term liquidity. However, the timing and ultimate outcome of such discussions cannot be determined at this time due, in part, to the abnormal condition of the domestic credit markets and the overall recessionary operating environment in which the Company, Pulitzer, and other publishing companies are currently operating. Continuing instability or further disruptions of these markets could prohibit or make it more difficult for the Company to access new capital, increase the cost of capital or limit its ability to refinance existing indebtedness. There are numerous potential consequences under the Credit Agreement, and Guaranty Agreement and Note Agreement related to the Pulitzer Notes, if an Event of Default, including expiration of existing waivers, occurs and is not
remedied. Many of those consequences are beyond the control of the Company, Pulitzer, and PD LLC, respectively. The occurrence of one or more Events of Default would give rise to the right of the Lenders or the Noteholders, or both of them, to exercise their remedies under the Credit Agreement and the Note and Guaranty Agreements, respectively, including, without limitation, the right to accelerate all outstanding debt and take actions authorized in such circumstances under applicable collateral security documents, any of which would impair the ability of the Company to operate its business as a going concern. Source: mergermarket.

Microsoft To Lay Off 17% Of Workforce? — Fudzilla, a tech blog, reports that Microsoft may lay off 17% of its work force, or 15,000 people, on Jan. 15, but Silicon Alley Insider contends that a cut of this magnitude is
unlikely. “Unless Microsoft’s business has been absolutely crushed in the
past two months, there is no reason for the company to suddenly cut this
much cost,” writes Henry Blodget. He points out that Microsoft’s margins
are actually fine, as much of the company’s revenue is generated from
multi-year contracts that aren’t expiring anytime soon. Blodget says the
only way Microsoft would lay off this many people is if decided to
eliminate whole businesses, but again, this is unlikely, because the
software giant would be more likely to sell rather than shut down any
divisions it no longer wanted. This includes MSN, which Fudzilla cites as a
major recipient of the pending job cuts. Blodget adds that if Microsoft
wanted to get out of the Internet biz, the best way would be to combine its
online operations with Yahoo and then take a majority stake in the combined entity. However, Microsoft just hired a new head of MSN, and while it’s possible he will make some cuts, “15,000 sounds extreme,” Blodget says.

Publicis Continues To Bet On Internet Ad Spend, Despite The Risks — Looking back at the growing strains on the traditional ad business over the last year, Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Lévy expresses his continued enthusiasm to the NYT that the rise of digital media will save the
industry. Lévy, who spends most of the article professing his ardor for
Barack Obama, says that despite the global economic downturn, online growth will remain solid. As he has maintained since last year, by 2010, Lévy expects 15 percent of global ad spend will be tied to the web. He has also previously said that 25 percent of Publicis’ revenues would be related to the internet by next year, but the NYT interview didn’t include an update
on whether or not Lévy still holds that view. Risks to betting on internet
ad spend: To be sure, banking on the growth of online as traditional ad
spend was cutting back was a fairly safe one when Lévy first made it in May
2007, a Morgan Stanley report on Publicis says that the company might want to rethink its past bets internet gains. “This has recently become a
higher-risk strategy,” the Morgan Stanley report says, pointing to the last
downturn, when online spending suffered the most. Still, the current signs
suggest that even with the significant economic pitfalls, online appears
fairly resilient, although that’s mainly attributable to lower cost search
ads.

Social Gaming: Challenges And Opportunities For ‘09 — Social gaming may be a growth sector, but GigaOm’s Wagner James Au warns the coming year will bring challenges as well as opportunities for social gaming startups. One of the biggest challenges, he says, is that the majority of startups are still at the mercy of top social networks like Facebook, which have a habit of suddenly changing their policies. Such changes can have an adverse affect on third party application makers. There’s also unpredictability in competition. Most social networking games are easy to reproduce, so developers often find themselves competing with knockoff versions of their own app. Also, the proliferation of poor quality games could hurt the sector as a whole, says Kristian Segerstrale, CEO and co-founder of Playfish: “Poor quality user experiences or misleading monetization mechanisms like some of the aggressive CPA practices we’ve seen in 2008 could jeopardize the perception of social games and our growth potential as an industry.”

Online Or Bust: Why 2009 May Be The Nail In Newspapers’ Coffin — Optimistic newspaper proprietors like Sly Bailey and Tim Bowdler blame the business’ current malaise (we’ve covered over 1,000 newspaper job losses in UK since October alone) on an advertising downturn that’s merely
“cyclical”. In reality, 2009 is more likely to bring more layoffs, further
consolidation and the death of certain long-running titles than it is a
cyclical upturn in fortunes, as publishers grapple with the truth that
their businesses have changed fundamentally and forever. In 2008, every
newspaper group either cut regional budgets, closed offices, shut titles or
cut staff – in some cases, all of the above. In one way, this is nothing
new – cutbacks are part of life for most newspapers and magazines nowadays. But there’s a strong case for saying 2009 will mark a shift from seasonal, sensible belt-tightening to the long-term shrinking of the newspaper industry in Britain.

Kilar on Original Content; in a Q&A, Hulu CEO says he expects library content like recycled TV shows will remain the biggest “bucket” of premium content, but originals like Dr. Horrible will be the fastest-growing segment. (MediaPost)

Cuban Acquires Stake in Carmike Cinemas; Cuban, who also has a stake in Landmark Theaters, bought 9.4 percent of Carmike for $2.8 million. (Associated Press)

College Footbal Scores Online; ESPN online served up more than 101 million college football feature and highlight video streams this season. (MediaPost)

Warner Music Acts Upset Over YouTube Yanking; Amanda Palmer, an artist signed to a Warner subsidiary, says Warner has no bargaining power and even if it did get more money from YouTube, it’s unlikely she’d see any of it. (Techdirt) See our previous coverage.

Blinkx Releases New Ad Format; the “un-roll” is like a branded barn door that slowly opens as the content begins to play. You can see the demo here.

Blinkx Rolls Out Un-roll for Online Video Ads
Blinkx, a video search engine, has introduced Un-roll Unit, which is claimed to be an immersive branding experience. It aims to give advertisers an opportunity to leverage the impact of online television and engage users with a brand throughout the video…More