Posted at 4:04 AM PT
Here’s a match up that makes plenty of sense: EMI Music Group, which has a new Norah Jones album to promote, is showing her videos on Hulu, the video joint venture that specializes in “premium” content. But the deal is the only one of its kind. While the big music labels have played footsie with Hulu in the past, they have yet to actually move any of their clips there. Instead, they’re concentrating on YouTube, which makes plenty of sense.
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Posted at 7:18 AM PT
Are Warner Music Group and EMI, which have been circling each other for nearly a decade, finally ready to consummate their relationship?
That’s the obvious question in light of news that both Terra Firma, the private equity group that bought EMI in 2007, and Citigroup, which funded most of that transaction, have written down most of their investments in the music company.
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Posted at 6:07 AM PT
Going, going, gone: The last of the Web 2.0 music services are dwindling away. The latest is Imeem, which is in the process of being purchased by MySpace, I’ve confirmed.
Haven’t heard a price yet, but I wouldn’t expect much, given that this deal, like the iLike purchase MySpace made earlier this year, is an “acqhire”–News Corp.’s social network/portal wants to buy Imeem for its “sales team, engineering, Snocap and other Imeem IP,” a person familiar with the transaction tells me.
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Posted at 7:05 AM PT
The new conventional wisdom is that sooner or later, consumers will have to start paying for some of the stuff they currently get for free on the Web.
But will they actually pay up? Here, the conventional wisdom is not so helpful. Nor are studies predicting consumer behavior.
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Posted at 5:10 AM PT
When will Comcast and GE’s NBCU finally unveil their hookup plans? When Vivendi says they can. Which should be sooner than later.
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Posted at 6:43 AM PT
Little by little, AOL is offering investors more and more details about what the company will look like after it spins off from Time Warner. But the more AOL discloses, the less attractive the company looks. The newest problem: AOL’s steady flow of Google money is going away.
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Posted at 5:19 AM PT
Are the folks who put together “The Office” clairvoyant or what? These things are written and shot many weeks in advance, yet last night’s episode contains a perfectly timed reference to the News Corp./Google paywall controversy.
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Posted at 6:35 AM PT
The only news here is that it took this long: The New York Times, which is trying to figure out how to boost revenue and cut costs, is freezing its pension and benefit plans–for management–at the end of this year.
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Posted at 5:43 AM PT
AOL formally acknowledged that it plans on a round of very large cuts: In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Time Warner unit said it plans on taking up to $200 million in restructuring charges through the first half of 2010. Earlier this week, Kara Swisher reported that AOL’s coming spinoff would be followed by layoffs of up to 1,000 employees.
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Posted at 5:00 AM PT
If you’re someone who gets paid to market to people who use YouTube, there’s a good chance you already know about TestTube, the site’s suite of experimental services. The rest of us will find interesting novelties, like “Insights for Audience”: A nifty way to find out what people like–or unlike–you are watching.
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Posted at 3:25 PM PT
If you want to buy Bill Gates’s house, you need something like $150 million. But what about a tour of the place, guided by the Microsoft co-founder himself? Much more affordable.
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Posted at 1:12 PM PT
While Rupert Murdoch is busy thumbing his nose at Google, he is making more friendly overtures to other media players. Sources tell me his News Corp. may join the digital e-reader storefront that Time Inc. and other magazine publishers are putting together.
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Posted at 10:52 AM PT
The newest twist in Google’s quest to wring more more money out of YouTube: Ads you don’t have to look at. That’s a refreshing change of pace, no?
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Posted at 6:02 AM PT
Add one more voice to the chorus of conventional wisdom: The Web ad market has stopped getting worse, but it’s going to be a while before it starts getting healthy.
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Posted at 6:48 AM PT
The digital disruption wave is crashing down on the ad business. One agency’s response: A line of jewelry “that takes interesting data and transforms it into wearable art.”
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Here’s a match up that makes plenty of sense: EMI Music Group, which has a new Norah Jones album to promote, is showing her videos on Hulu, the video joint venture that specializes in “premium” content. But the deal is the only one of its kind. While the big music labels have played footsie with Hulu in the past, they have yet to actually move any of their clips there. Instead, they’re concentrating on YouTube, which makes plenty of sense.
