The media giant intends to spin off its cable unit in an initial public offering by the end of the quarter or late summer, CEO Richard Parsons tells an investment conference. [CNET News.com Entertainment & Media]
MPAA, 20th Century Fox launch anti-Internet-piracy movie trailer in US theaters
Twentieth Century Fox and the MPAA have teamed up to produce an anti-piracy trailer intended to educate American filmgoers about the evils of movie piracy via digital file-swapping services like Kazaa.
Initially, the two-minute trailer that puts a human face on the victims of piracy will be shown at most Regal Cinemas, the nation’s largest theater chain. It will be unveiled Wednesday at [the entertainment industry convention] ShoWest, which runs today through Thursday. (…)
Um, The victims of piracy?
How Intel Gets Inside
Through Intel Capital of course…
1) Find a wireless company with a promising technology, be it a Bluetooth chip (Cambridge Silicon Radio plc (CSR)), an enterprise-oriented wireless LAN hotspot network (iPass Inc.), or funky mobile applications (Jamdat Mobile Inc.).
2) Make a “strategic” investment of $10 million or less in said company. For extra bonus points, seat an Intel person on the board.
3) Have the grateful startup guarantee that everything it does will work with Intel “platforms.” If you’re developing an application, that means doing the code-work on servers with Intel inside (TM), says our source. “Otherwise people would be using Sun [Unix servers],” he asserts.
“It’s cheaper than an ad campaign”
[Unstrung]
Sony’s CEO Unplugged
At this year’s World Economic Forum, held recently in Davos, Switzerland, Tony Perkins sat down with Mr. Idei with Sir Howard Stringer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Sony Corporation of America, at his side, to discuss their take on technology trends. In this first part, Mr. Idei explains why he would buy Palm if they would sell, how Nokia doesn’t get it, and why his music and entertainment group needs to get their act together if they want to stay competitive.[AlwaysOn Network]
InfoUSA Buys Yesmail
The e-mail marketing and list-management company is bought as parent company CMGI continues to pare down its portfolio. [internetnews.com: Top News]
Interesting to see how quickly and well they are able to package email to mailing address for a total view of the customer package…
Absolut Online Committment
Keep in mind that Volvo did this first for the launch of the S60.
Absolut’s got some new Web stuff up.
Not only is an extremely media rich site (with an odd sort of infomercial introducing site features), but Absolut has decided to launch their newest flavor (Vanilla–I’ll let the lawyers discuss to whom an alcohol that tastes like an ice cream flavor is targetted) online. You can’t buy the stuff. You can only luxuriate in the brand.
Listen: this is a major investment by a brand maverick in online:
* It’s broadband only. This is, I believe, a further realization of the importance of at-work surfers. Especially the young and hip.
* It’s online-branding. Really it is. What else could it be? The product in not available anywhere yet. All you can do is experience the idea of the product.
Dare I say it? Party like it’s 1999. This time, hopefully we’ll be smart enough to understand how to use this creative energy toward marketing goals.
Amazon enters domain-name game
The e-commerce giant, which has greatly widened its retail business in the past year, gets the nod to sell Internet addresses to individuals and businesses. [CNET News.com Entertainment & Media]
Smart move from a smart player. With one click, it should be a heck of a lot easier to manage and buy domains and domain products…
All I wanted was a lower ticket price…
GOVERNMENT UNVEILS TERRORISM READINESS TV ADS PSA
Six public service announcements from the Ad Council, a public service group, carry the thematic headline “Ready” and advise Americans to prepare a home emergency kit and direct viewers to a new government Web site (UPDATE – I could only get the page to load in IE. Safari and Chimera both loaded blanks…thanks Gov!) for tips on how to put one together. [AdAge]
If you have recently subscribed, please disregard this notice.
There is a banner at the top of the lastest Madison+Vine e-newsletter from AdAge stating “If you have recently subscribed, please disregard this notice.”
What do you think recent might be? I find this to be a sad showing from AdAge, the trade journal of advertising… Don’t you think they could have done a simple segmentation and possibly sold an ad to subscribers, vs. wasting a house impression on them – especially such a weak one? Maybe then, this newsletter would not cost $299 (save 100 as a charter subscriber!)…
CheetahMail actually did the blast and I spent 30 seconds and found this wonderful snippet right on their home page:
CheetahMail’s email marketing and customer intelligence technology is designed for companies that want to increase their brand equity through the acquisition and retention of their customer base. By empowering companies to send highly targeted and relevant emails to their permission based subscriber list, companies can leverage the use of the web as a means to cut costs, strengthen relationships and increase ROI.
Not this time.
Cisco kicks off $150 million ad push
The networking giant begins a $150 million advertising campaign in hopes of beating back new competition from makers of less-expensive gear. [CNET News.com]
I caught a new ad tonight during 24, and I have to say that it was spot on. Cisco knows how to communicate what they do (not that easy to the lay person) and deliver a global perspective as well.
Purchases make Wi-Fi free for limited time
Purchases make Wi-Fi free for limited time: An interesting approach by a UK chain of sandwich shops — a purchase gives you free Wi-Fi hot spot time.
Thinking about the customer can enhance loyalty. This is the opposite of the starbucks/t-mobile approach.
When they make a purchase, customers will be given an access code that allows them to log into the wireless network for up to 30 minutes, letting them check email and surf the Web while they’re away from the office.
Three Degrees from Microsoft
Microsoft is targeting the Internet generation with a new product called Three Degrees. Newsweek has the full story. The product is a powerful extension of instant messaging with the ability to create ad-hoc personal communities. Once you establish these groups, there are a variety of tasks that can be shared including pictures, listening to shared playlists and the ability to send animated “winks” to other users.
I think there are some very broad implications to this product but it has some limitations. First, it only runs on Windows XP with Service Pack 1. That alone greatly limits the size of who you can establish communities with. Microsoft needs to take this to at least Windows 98 (and Mac OS) if it wants to get to critical mass. Second, the program is a bit too oriented to a 13-24 demographic. GenNet (as Microsoft likes to call it) is a behavioral demographic not just an age demographic, the UI needs to be tweaked for a slightly more mature audience that might very well grok the features but be turned off by candy colored interface that tries a little too hard to look like it’s cool. That applies even toward the target audience, remember the only thing worse than being someone who’s “not cool” is being someone who’s not cool and trying to act like you are.
Anil had initially pointed this out yesterday as well:
threedegrees is microsoft’s upcoming IM effort
aimed at a teenage and early 20’s market, with features like file sharing, this should be interesting
We’ll see what it is soon enough. I registered last night… see how quickly this thing happens.
Lower the ticket price!!
Since they are paying to reach us, ala broadcast TV, lower the damn price of the movie ticket! You don’t pay money to watch HBO with commercials for anything other than previews for more HBO features. Movies used to be the same, with only previews. Come on! Faking the recycled contect is advertising as well… I’m sure NBC had nothing to do with replaying the clips, or that the videos are not being promoted by record labels.
PRE-MOVIE SHOWS. America’s largest movie-theater chain — Regal Entertainment Group — is testing the boundaries between advertising and entertainment with a 20-minute pre-movie show that mixes content with commercials, as reported by Brian Steinberg in Dow Jones Newswires. The content claims 13 minutes of the programming, and includes music videos and Tonight Show clips, for example. The commercials consume the 7-minute balance, and the early takers include Colgate Palmolive, Coca-Cola and Cingular Wireless.
Whether audiences will accept the shows is not yet totally clear. Some theater owners say that “patrons want to chat with their friends” and relax before the film (make that the shorts) begin, and not be subjected to anything more intrusive than those hokey slides from local merchants. Regal, however, thinks that if their pre-shows enhance the movie-going experience, they will be a hit. The theater chain cites its own research showing that “80 percent of respondents expected advertising at the movies, and 47 percent even liked it,” while “12 percent disliked the advertising they saw.”
Such rosy numbers could hold — or even improve — provided the pre-shows live up to their potential to entertain, perhaps using the size of the screen “to give rise to spots as engrossing…as those that air during the Oscars and the Super Bowl.” However, notes MediaCom’s John Connolly, the cost “is huge” to make ads exclusively for theater screens, and the effectiveness could be diluted if much of the audience is still in the lobby getting popcorn. Regal, meanwhile, says it “has sold about 75 percent of the available movie-screen space for the year,” and that “three of the nine months between March and December are completely sold out.” The pre-movie shows are currently available “in about 160 theaters and on close to 2,000 screens,” and “the company expects to expand that to nearly 400 theaters and 4,500 screens by the end of 2003.”
[Reveries]
Put the broadband pipe down!
SBC’s possible play for DirecTV is, well … not sane. Do I have to point back to AT&T? World Com? Enron? Well, ok that was a bit different but you see the point I am trying to make. Have we all forgotten the aforementioned debacles? How many telecommunications companies have to get into the content distribution game and fail before others will stop? While I understand the need to try and compete with cable and their bundled offering, look at the situation logically. Adding data to video is easy; adding video to data is not. These are two very different products with different product life cycles, pricing and deployment infrastructures. Come on people, put the pipe down.
Pervasive Computing
The emergence of small, embedded processors is also contributing to a shift away from products and toward higher-margin services, he said. For example, cellphone providers practically give the handsets away and make most of their money on the service they offer.
“The next industry to fall will be the automotive business,” Saffo said.
For example, the Mercedes C-Class sedan has 153 microprocessors and features an optional satellite-based communication system that enables drivers to contact car companies to get map and other driving information, stock updates and help in emergencies.
“It’s not a car, it’s a computer,” Saffo said.
“Soon, they’ll be selling cars at or below cost” because they will be able to make up the difference with service fees.
Interesting… I would love to get a car below cost. I would be game for a few services I’m sure…
Big 3 join on GPRS, EDGE push-to-talk
[infoSync: Big 3 join on GPRS, EDGE push-to-talk ]
Ericsson, Nokia and Siemens have joined forces to promote a unified solution for push-to-talk solutions over GPRS and EDGE networks, based on the IP Multimedia Subsystem.
Aiming to provide an alternative to numerous proprietary solutions from smaller players, Ericsson, Nokia and Siemens are now teaming up to define specifications for an open standard to speed the adoption of direct-call push-to-talk service over GPRS. The technology uses the capabilities of the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) as specified by 3GPP for enabling IP connections between mobile phones, and initial trials are expected to begin in the second half of 2003.
IP Multimedia System (IMS) is a technology standardized by 3GPP, broadly viewed as a key development of the mobile communication into IP technologies by adding the ability to deliver integrated voice and data services over the IP-based packet switched network, using SIP to initiate a session.
Obviously Nextel has something that everyone else wants. The more quality services, the better the ARPU (Average Revenue Per Unit) earned each month. This is a business idea and strategy, not some frill like MMS, which is cool,but not exactly focused yet on making money for the carriers since people don’t quite get (or want) it.
Does Your CEO have a Weblog?
Mine does! Our CEO, Alan Meckler has started a blog. You can check it out here. I’d love to see all CEOs doing this, documenting what they are doing and why.
NYTimes.com gears ads to surfers’ habits
New York Times Digital, in a new test is letting advertisers reach visitors with demonstrated interests, in what could be a new dawn of personalized advertising on the Web. [CNET News.com Entertainment and Media]
You will now be able to be targeted by the personal information you’ve given the New York Times…