It’s official: You still can’t buy the Beatles’ songs on the Web, despite the efforts of a site that attempted to do so by rewriting copyright law on the fly. In other news: Have you seen this clip of Richard Pryor reading the alphabet on Sesame Street? Awesome.
News for the foodie/NY blog scene: Ben Leventhal, co-founder of the influential Eater blog, is headed to GE’s NBC Universal, where he’ll oversee “lifestyle content” for NBC’s growing local Web unit.
Ideal Bite, the green-flavored lifestyle newsletter business Disney bought in June 2008, faces an uncertain fate: Its parent company is shuttling the unit from one corporate silo to another and says it’s not sure what will become of it once that happens. Translation: The job market is going to see a few more resumes.
Employees at News Corp.’s MySpace have been waiting to find out who their new ad sales boss will be. And, here she is: Nada Stirratt, who until today was running digital sales for Viacom’s MTV Networks.
Stirratt has her work cut out for her. The struggling social networking site, HQed in Beverly Hills, has been trying to reboot its image, spur innovation in its product and, most of all, pull itself out of a too-long slump, even as longtime rival, Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook, has seen explosive growth.
Start-ups whose business plans are based on selling advertising are having a very hard time raising money. But start-ups that want to make money by helping other people sell advertising? That’s another story.
Today’s example: Rubicon Project, a Los Angeles-based advertising-optimization start-up, has raised a $9 million C round led by Peacock Equity, the joint venture co-owned by GE Capital and GE’s NBC Universal.
Hey, here’s some “process journalism” for you: Anyone know what happened at the Hulu board meeting in Los Angeles on Monday? Besides News Corp. digital boss Jon Miller taking his seat on the board? Inquiring minds want to know! In the meantime, enjoy Jon Stewart tearing apart CNN’s clumsy attempts to use Facebook and Twitter to augment its… reporting.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider. Read more »
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