Good morning, it’s April 1, 2010, and this is your first early morning digital briefing.

Days before the release of the iPad, Amazon struck new electronic book pricing deals with CBS Corp.’s Simon & Schuster and News Corp.’s HarperCollins Publishers to allow both companies to set their own prices for best seller releases, per the WSJ. The new arrangement will allow prices to be set at $12.99-$14.99 for many new books – identical to the price points Apple will offer publishers for the iPad. Amazon had played hardball with publishers before Apple came on the scene, demanding a $9.99 ceiling for all major titles. Sony, which launched the word’s first e-book reader, also announced it will begin to allow publishers to set their own e-book prices. Meanwhile, Sony will reduce the price point of its entry level Pocket Edition to $170.
 

 
The New York Daily News is partnering with Getty Images to digitally license its entire photo archive including 100,000 images dating back to 1880.
 

 
YouTube began rolling out a major overhaul of its video pages, featuring a larger video player, a more subtle, streamlined interface and advanced recommendation features. The right side of the page now features a curated list of recommended videos matched by topic and genre designed to get viewers to stick around longer. (Viewing on YouTube averaged about 15 minutes/day last month, according to ComScore.)
 
Microblogging site Twitter has updated its homepage, adding a sample of “Top tweets” (featuring famous people and major brands) front and center and scrolling “Trending Topics” across the top of the page.
 

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

 
Striking a compromise to appease TV station groups and media buyers, Nielsen begins scrapping its live TV metric from today, replacing it with Live-plus-same day DVR views. The change, originally slated for Dec. 1, means that advertisers and stations will now only have overnight access to live-plus-same-day, live-plus-three-day, and live-plus-seven-day viewing. Live viewing metrics will still be available for purchase separately, but not on an overnight basis.
 
Yahoo announced plans to close its Yahoo Publisher Network on April 30, a contextual direct sales ad service launched 5 years ago to compete with Google’s AdSense.
 

 
Perhaps signaling a more aggressive stance toward illegal file sharing, more than 20,000 lawsuits have been filed against movie torrent downloaders in Washington D.C. federal court, according to the THR, Esq. blog. The lawsuits were filed by law firm US Copyright Group, on behalf of a loose coalition of indie film producers and with the encouragement of the Independent Film & Television Alliance.
 
BlackBerry maker Research In Motion probably suffered from this week’s iPhone news when it saw its stock price dip by more than 5% yesterday, despite reporting earnings of $710 million for Q4, up 37% year/year. RIM added 5 million net subscribers during the quarter, bringing its total to more than 41 million.
 
Comcast’s online video publishing firm thePlatform announced automated support of HTML 5 video publishing for distribution to the upcoming iPad. The system automatically delivers multiple versions of single video files to adapt to different versions of the format on multiple browsers.
 
Web video platform Kyle also launched a developer’s kit supporting the new HTML 5 video format, geared toward the creation of iPad apps for the iTunes Store.
 

 
U.S. households using web-connected game consoles rose by 64% from 2008, while the number of households connecting a PC to a TV increased by 36%, according to a new report released by Parks Associates.
 
Despite all the hype surrounding smartphone sales, new prepaid cell phone subscribers accounted for nearly two thirds (65%) of the 4.2 million net subscribers added by U.S. phone carriers in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to a new survey from the New Millennium Research Council. The prepaid segment of the wireless market grew by 17% in Q409 to 54.4 million subscribers for a 20% overall market share, up from 46.3 million in the same quarter in 2008.
 

 
You can now pay for your Starbucks fix using mobile payments via the free Starbucks Card Mobile iPhone app. Expanding from a test market in Seattle, the app will be accepted at more than 1,000 Starbucks and Target locations nationwide, making it largest mobile payment initiative yet launched in the U.S. Use the app and get free brewed coffee refills.
 
Cisco is trying to take the fear factor out of setting up a home network with its Valet and Valet Plus routers. Priced at $100 (or $50 more for the Valet 1GB Valet Plus,) it ships with a USB thumb drive that you simply insert into your computer, which walks you through the process of setting up a wireless network.
 
Popular Twitter video service TwitVid.com announced it has been selected as the default video tweeting platform for desktop Twitter app TweetDeck. TwitVid.com will serve as the video service across all existing TweetDeck products, as well as all new products released by TweetDeck in 2010.
 

 
As part of its renewed focus on content creation, Yahoo has opened up a new news bureau in Washington D.C. and brought on nearly a dozen journalists to write for Yahoo News:

• Jane Sasseen, former editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek’s DC bureau, will run the D.C. Opinion section
• Michael Calderone, formerly of Politico, will cover Media
• Liz Goodwin, from the Daily Beast, will be covering National Affairs
• Anna Robertson serves as News/Director of Multimedia and Social Media
• Violet Mae Lim comes on as News/Social Media Editor
• Russ Walker (washingtonpost.com) was hired as News/Politics Editor
• Andrew Golis joins as News/News Blog Editor and Political Editor
• Chris Lehmann was hired as News/News Blog Deputy Editor
• Courtney Reimer takes the post of Yahoo! Entertainment/Blog Editor
• Eric Adelson becomes Yahoo! Sports/Special Projects Editor
• Brett Michael Dykes joins Yahoo as National Affairs Writer

 
McCann Erickson has added a pair of senior strategic planning executives, hiring Eric Bowe as Director of Strategic Planning for McCann Erickson Detroit and Amy Messinger as Director of Strategic Planning for the ad agency’s Los Angeles office.
 

 
Next New Networks‘ web show Creator’s Program has borne its first fruit yielding 7 new series from both seasoned producers and relative neophytes. Paul Briganti, Saj Pothiawala, and Jared Neumark of “Landline TV” fame, who rip on pop culture figures using song parodies in the NNN-distributed Key of Awesome, will do the same in a new animated show. The Tamra Davis Cooking Show appeals to a more practical female audience. Then for the reptile inclined there’s Brian Barcyk’s Snake Bytes TV. The Next New Creator’s Program, which provides services such as production support, graphics packaging, marketing tips and sponsorship services in exchange for a (varying) share of revenue, is designed to give producers who already have a good concept a helping hand with the business side of things, according to NNN SVP/Programming Kathleen Grace. The company currently employs 3 full-time sales people who are selling sponsorships for its own stable of shows and who may be able to add producers’ shows into the mix. “We’re looking to producers or shows that already have a discernable community around them and a conversation happening” that would benefit from the kind of services that weren’t available when I produced my own shows, she said. (Kathleen bootstrapped rockband mockumentary The All For Nots and sardonic hipster sitcom The Burg without such support.)
 
Correction : It’s Seton Hill giving students iPads, not Seton Hall.
 

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM ROVI

advertise in the guide
 
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    * Rovi IPGs are used 79.7 times by our viewers WEEKLY
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Click here to reach millions of North American homes: http://www.roviadvertising.com.

Later – Wayne
Wayne Karrfalt for Cynopsis: Digital
wayne@cynopsis.com
04.01.10

Cynopsis Ad Sales:
Mike Farina – Sr. Dir/Business Development & Sales – 203-218-6480 / mike@cynopsis.com
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