Cynopsis: DIGITAL
11/16/12

Good morning. It’s Friday, November 16, 2012, and this is your first early morning digital briefing.

Adobe unveiled two new components to its Project Primetime solution, which integrates the company’s video publishing, advertising, and data solutions to allow TV content owners and distributors to regularly optimize their video and ad content and generate revenue. The two new components are as follows:

Adobe MediaWeaver: Enables dynamic ad insertion for video content in browsers and apps on any connected device, creating what Adobe says is a buffer-free ad and content experience for consumers.

Primetime Media Player: This offers TV content owners and distributors a single workflow for content preparation, rights management, and streaming. The player is integrated with all other Primetime components, including SiteCatalyst, AudienceManager, and Auditude. It’s available via an SDK for iOS, Android, Mac OS, and Windows. Adobe says it will be extended to include other connected devices such as game consoles, OTT players, and connected TVs.

The company is also making the entire Primetime product suite available in beta.

Crackle, the free ad-supported video streaming service from Sony, has launched a new app for the PlayStation 3, available to users in the US and Canada. Crackle also recently re-launched the Sony Entertainment Network (SEN), featuring a new user experience for those accessing Crackle from Sony connected devices such as its line of Bravia TVs and Blu-ray players.

Gaiam Vivendi Entertainment (GVE) is expanding its existing digital licensing agreement with DHX Media, a producer of children’s TV programming. The new three-year deal means GVE will keep the digital distribution rights to 33 properties in the DHX Media library, and will also add 29 new properties to the slate, totaling 62 unique properties and 1,349 pieces of content that will be released in the US. This expanded slate includes shows featuring recognizable characters such as Inspector Gadget, Super Mario Bros., Madeline, and Strawberry Shortcake, among others.

Alloy Digital is expanding its publisher network with the acquisition of gaming lifestyle site The Escapist from Themis Media. The Escapist delivers daily gaming-focused content, including video, produced by a variety of video game experts. It reaches over 3.3 million monthly uniques, according to comScore data, and its YouTube channel so far has topped 30 million views in total. Alloy says the deal was made to complement its existing gaming lifestyle property, SMOSH Games, as the company continues to grow in a category that plays well with its core 12-34 demographic.

CocoaFab.com is a new website from former Essence Editor-in-Chief Angela Burt-Murray and Shelly Jones Jennings that looks to be an online destination for celebrity news and style for young women of color. The site will feature six original weekly web series focusing on entertainment and style, in addition to breaking entertainment news, interviews, coverage of fashion and beauty trends, and more.

This Technology, a provider of dynamic ad insertion software for TV Everywhere, IPTV, nDVR, and VOD, has landed $7.5 million in Series A financing, led by General Catalyst Partners. The funds will go toward “general corporate purposes, including expansion of the company’s market leading development and support resources.” The start-up says its products seamlessly connect video operations with ad architectures in order to help service providers and programming networks communicate in real-time about content and ad availability. This Technology’s client roster includes the likes of Comcast, Verizon, NBCUniversal, and ABC. General Catalyst Partners’ Neil Sequeria has joined the start-up’s Board of Directors.

Time Warner is mulling an investment to buy a minority stake in Maker Studios, reports Variety. The start-up — an online video talent and production studio that’s pretty knee-deep in creating content on YouTube — is currently at work on a new round of venture capital financing. Maker’s network of YouTube stars currently operates more than 2,000 channels on the video site. Per the report, it’s unclear right now which aspect of Time Warner will make this investment, if it does indeed happen.

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Social video advertising provider Unruly has released the results of a recent UK campaign it ran for Nissan, which also served as a pilot test for Unruly’s new Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) video player technology. Powered by Unruly’s CUPID algorithm, DCO matches content with audience by analyzing multiple creative executions for a social video campaign and then serving the video that will best perform against the campaign’s objectives, according to the company. Nissan’s campaign in the UK tapped this technology for its Juke model. And the results? Unruly says the DCO technology automatically selected the most popular video creative based on KPIs to boost completion rates by 83%.

SiteScout, a self-serve DSP for buying online ads, has integrated with MoPub, Nexage, Smaato, and TapIt to increase its mobile inventory to over 30 billion mobile impressions per month. The platform now also offers a bunch of different tools to help advertisers buy mobile ads. These include a Site List Filter, which allows advertisers to filter the types of impressions they want by standard web (phones), mobile web (phones), and mobile apps (phones and tablets). Other features include device targeting based on specific handset manufacturers, operating systems, and browsers, and carrier targeting spanning nearly 100 mobile carriers in the US, Canada, and the UK.

Broadcaster LIN Media has launched a new mobile marketing solutions company called LIN Mobile. Tapping into LIN Media’s relationships with local and national advertisers, LIN Mobile will look to help clients market their products and services by delivering targeted and localized ads across all top mobile operating devices. Kevin Wassong has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of LIN Mobile. He will report to Robb Richter, LIN Media’s SVP in charge of digital media. LIN Mobile will be based in LIN Media’s digital sales headquarters in NYC.

According to Ooyala’s Q3 2012 Global Video Index, which presents data collected through the company’s video analytics platform, tablets seem to be carving out an increasing chunk of digital video consumption. The report indicates that the overall share of tablet video viewing grew 90% in the past two quarters. In addition, tablet owners are more open to long-form content. Tablet owners spent 71% of their total tablet video viewing time watching videos of 10 minutes or longer, and 30% of their total tablet viewing time on content that was over one hour long. Among the other findings from the report: The amount of time users spent watching live video on game consoles more than doubled in Q3, and desktop viewers tuned into live video for an average of 40 minutes.

The Travel Channel has launched an updated version of the Travel Channel Layover Guide, which is now available for free on the iPhone and iPad. The app features video, photography, and expert advice from Travel Channel, offering a guide to unique places and local favorites in different cities around the world. Ten new cities are spotlighted in the app, coinciding with them being featured in the new season of The Layover with Anthony Bourdain. These new cities include Atlanta, Dublin, New Orleans, Paris, Sao Paulo, Seattle, Taipei, and Toronto, among others. Each new city will appear concurrently in the app as that episode airs. Other features include an in-app web browser.

Among a slew of new executive moves/hires announced by NBCUniversal, Peter Naylor, EVP/Digital Media Sales, has been named EVP/Ad Sales for NBC News Digital. Effective immediately, he will oversee all sales efforts for NBCNews.com, MSNBC.com, Today.com, and CNBC.com, as well as iVillage.com, which yesterday became part of the NBC News Digital division. He will report to Linda Yaccarino, President/Ad Sales for NBCUniversal.

Ad tech provider TruEffect has appointed Joyce Goh to the role of Director/Ad Operations. She will report to Kristine Elliot, VP/Client Solutions at TruEffect.

Independent online ad exchange AdBrite has unveiled a new executive team led by new Chief Executive Officer Hardeep Bindra. Other executive changes include Joaquin Delgado assuming the role of Chief Technology Officer and John Underwood as the company’s new VP/Business Affairs.

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We now have the first trailer for House of Cards, the new political drama from Media Rights Capital and David Fincher that will premiere exclusively on Netflix on February 1, 2013. The drama stars Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright as a power-hungry couple in Washington, D.C. The trailer can be viewed on Netflix and on YouTube, and it looks magnificent.

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Later – Sahil
Sahil Patel, Associate Editor for Cynopsis Digital
11.16.12

Denise O’Connor: Group Publisher, Media Entertainment
Diane K Schwartz: Senior Vice President, Media Communications Group

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