Cynopsis: DIGITAL

10/15/09

Good morning, it’s Thursday, October 15, 2009, and this is your first early morning digital briefing.

Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis have filed an injunction to block eBay’s sale of the company to a group of venture capitalists. The two are claiming that Index Ventures‘ Mike Volpi, one of Skype’s prospective buyers, is illegally using information gained while running their online video hub Joost to engineer the sale, per the WSJ. The suit claims that Vopli had enough insider knowledge to know that litigation pending over the copyright of software owned by co-plaintiff Joltid would not impede the future of Skype.
 

 
Sometimes it’s just cheaper to keep her. The New York Times announced it has decided to keep The Boston Globe, Boston.com and its related businesses after months of trying to drive up the price. (The Times Co. paid $1.1 billion for the paper in 1993 and letting it go in today’s climate would have amounted to a fire sale.)
 
Microsoft, Fox One and ad agencies Universal McCann and Crispin, Porter and Bogusky have enlisted Family Guy and Cavalcade creator Seth MacFarlane to help plug the new Windows 7 operating system. (The showrunner, who struck a deal with Google and BK to promote his online series, is getting old hat at these forward-thinking market deals.) Seth and company will write and produce a series of vaudevillian style, Tivo-busting branded integration segments that will be sprinkled throughout a live and animated 30 min. comedy show, airing at the beginning of sweeps month on Sunday, Nov. 8. Complementary assets will also be distributed across multiple Fox properties, including Fox Licensing and Merchandising, Fox Sports, FX, Fox.com, FoxSports.com and Hulu.
 
Condé Nast’s Brides.com site will be stream a four-hour live runway show powered by Livestream with simultaneous Twitter and Facebook displays on Oct. 17, featuring the Fall 2010 collection from the Priscilla of Boston design group. Log on at 6:30 ET, 30 minutes before the show starts, for exclusive backstage access. 

Fanlala.com launched as another tween and teen targeted social networking site, with an emphasis on safety and celebrity content. Featured celebrities such as the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez have fan pages built into the community interface sporting exclusive videos, UGC videos and photos, chat rooms, picture galleries and news from other tween sites.
 
Web video producer and distributor Babelgum is picking up a second season of its intergalactic Sci Fi comedy The Crew from RegisteredFilms. Look for some of the better known web personalities to make appearances including LonelyGirl Jessica Rose, Tom Konkle of Dave and Tom fame and Robin Thorson from The Guild.
 
Call for Content: Babelgum also launched a new Metropolis Art Prize contest, seeking video submissions documenting the work of artists active in any visual medium. Work will be accepted up to Oct. 25, then evaluated by a panel of judges led by Isabella Rossellini. The grand prize winner will receive $20k and have his or her art screened on the huge video monitors at Times Square.
 

 
Digg plans to expand its cost-per-click ad program into a full-blown ad network, per Adweek. The network would syndicate contextually relevant “content ads,” placed around user-submitted stories that get voted up the Digg ranking. The idea is to better monetize traffic when it arrives in waves, instead of selling inventory on the cheap to remnant ad networks. 
 
Comcast Spotlight and Time Warner Cable‘s local ad sales teams have begun using SpotMixer‘s ad creation software maker to create spec ads for local advertisers.
 
Note from Cyn:  We’ve been hearing the buzz for years on Advanced Advertising & iTV, and we’re wondering if it’s really beginning to happen, and where that will take us in the future.  We’re trying to get to the center of the conversation and hear all sides, and would like your help to do that.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a brand, an agency, television distributor or programmer – if you have a free moment, or need a distraction, we would appreciate your thoughts on this newest ad trend, by going here and anonymously answering the questions on a short survey on the topic.  We’ll share the info with you at our CTAM Luncheon in Denver later on this month.  Thanks for your participation!

 
Vivendi‘s board of directors met yesterday in part to discuss Comcast‘s offer to purchase its 20% share in NBC Universal. No word yet on the verdict.
 
Amid intensifying opposition from GOP lawmakers and telecom and cable companies, the FCC launched a new blog at OpenInternet.gov yesterday to articulate the need for net neutrality rules and open internet infrastructure. The commission is set to hold a meeting on Oct. 22 to discuss the issue and plans to stream the proceedings live on the site.
 
Weinstein & Co. is selling its controlling stake in aSmallWorld.net – a social networking site for the moneyed class, reports LA Times’ Company Town blog.
 
Intel shares spiked on a better-than-expected Q4 forecast; the company is now predicting revenue of as much as $10.5 billion thanks to a resurgence in the PC market.
 

 
Top 10 Web Brands for Sept. 2009
Brand                  Unique Audience (000) Time per Person (hh:mm:ss)
Google                            144,049              1:53:10
Yahoo!                            133,425              3:08:49      
MSN/WindowsLive/Bing    110,778              2:01:03
Facebook                        105,449              5:24:38
YouTube                           92,812              1:12:51
Microsoft                          92,122              0:45:02
AOL Media Network           89,302              2:40:19
Fox Interactive Media        66,756              1:45:50
Wikipedia                         61,080              0:17:26
Apple                               58,940              1:17:55
Source: The Nielsen Company
 
Average U.S. Internet Usage – Sept. 2009
Metrics                                             Sep-09
Sessions/Visits per Person                          53
Domains Visited per Person                        87
Web Pages per Person                           2,645
PC Time per Person                          68:00:58
Duration of a Web Page Viewed           0:00:57
Active Digital Media Universe        194,266,992
Current Digital Media Universe Est.233,878,000 |
Source: The Nielsen Company
 

 
Flip Video has come out with a second-generation Flip MinoHD camera, named for its flip-out USB connector, that packs in double the storage capacity (8GB) and adds an HMDI-out port. The company also updated its FlipShare software to support direct Facebook uploading, in addition to existing YouTube and MySpace integrations. The new Flip MinoHD is priced at $229, $30 more than the original Flip MinoHD , which stores up to one hour of recording time.
 
Apple released an update to its iMovie video editing program that improves compatibility with video cameras using the new iFrame video format, as well as compatibility with video recorded on the new iPod nano. The Sanyo VPC-HD2000A and the Sanyo VPC-FH1A currently support the iFrame format.
 
The CW network and CBS Mobile introduced a couple of new iPhone apps:

• CW City Wize is a new GPS-powered iPhone app from The CW that highlights New York, Beverly Hills or Hollywood-based geographical locations featured in its shows such as Gossip Girl, 90210 and the redux of Melrose Place. The app also highlights “hot spots,” and offers special promotions
• CWTV is a video preview app featuring clips, interviews and behind the scenes footage from CW shows. The app also provides direct links to the iTunes store for paid downloads

 
Greg Scholl, former President & CEO of digital music distributor The Orchard, was named President, Local Media Platforms for NBC‘s Local Media division. He will report directly to John Wallace, President, effective Nov. 2. Meanwhile Brian Buchwald is being upped to EVP of the group, adding oversight of the NBC Everywhere out-of-home business. Mark French, previously SVP and GM for NBC Everywhere, will take on a new role as SVP and GM of Local Enterprise Solutions, a newly formed unit designed to use local stations’ platforms, assets and audiences to drive value across other NBC Universal businesses. Mark will relocate to California in his new role.
 
Steve Hasker will join The Nielsen Company in the newly created role of President, Media Product Leadership and Advertiser Solutions, effective Nov. 2009. Steve will be based in New York and be tasked with directing strategy and development of Nielsen’s media products and services, including the company’s ongoing efforts around cross-media measurement. He is currently a partner at McKinsey & Company’s Global Media, Entertainment and Information practice.
 
Dailymotion hired Julia Benedict as North American Account Executive. She will oversee the build-out of the US account management process and will have direct sales responsibilities for the New York market. Julia comes over from AOL and Platform A.
 

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM CYNOPSIS MEDIA EVENTS

 
Do-gooders have discovered that digital platforms can help reach more people and further causes better than traditional media. Good.is one such entity, a coming together of working professionals, non-profits like the Wooster Collective and Tree Hugger and businesses that are utilizing events, a magazine and the web to spread the word about Good works. Part blog roll, part video portal and part crowdsourcing engine, Good operates on a kind of a karmic principle; throw good stuff out there and it will come back to you two-fold. Original productions such as the Skid Row video series, syndicated via YouTube, Yahoo, Digg and other portals, tackle serious issues from a human point of view. The group has also utilized crowdsourcing principles to build some very cool applications, such as a Facebook and MySpace app that promotes viral donations of time and money to charities and nonprofits. In two years, it registered more than 85 million users who supported more than 260,000 causes worldwide and have raised more than $14 million, according to Good President Craig Shapiro. Shapiro, former head of Content Strategy for the now defunct Helio mobile venture, says Good is currently in talks to distribute its video widely across several domestic and mobile platforms. To help fund the plans, Good recently closed a series A round of financing led by 20-something co-founder Ben Goldhirsh.
 
Correction : The EPIX movie channel is set to launch on Oct. 30 – not this weekend. Sources say the broadband and VOD service should be ready to roll by that time as well.
 

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM CTAM SUMMIT

Later — Wayne
 Wayne Karrfalt for Cynopsis: Digital
10.15.09

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