CW is preparing to launch its new “cwickie” ad format. On August 10th, during “Friday Night Smackdown,” ELECTRONIC ARTS will lead off three pods with a 10-second cwickie. In addition, EA will run a 60-second isolated spot near the start of the program, and a 90-second isolated spot near the end. All ads will lead up to the final 90-second ad — a never-before-seen glimpse of Madden NFL ’08.
YOUTUBE told a U.S. District Judge on Friday that content-filtering would be in place this September. YouTube lawyer Philip S. Beck said the company is working on digital-fingerprinting technology that will prevent copyrighted material from being posted to the video-sharing site. The disclosure came about during proceedings in Viacom’s $1 Billion lawsuit against YouTube for copyright infringement.
JOHN MALONE, the chairman of LIBERTY GLOBAL, has told the Financial Times that he may enter the $23 Billion auction for VIRGIN MEDIA. He is “doing his homework” to determine if a purchase of the company is feasible. Malone expressed concerns over competing with News Corp.- controlled British Sky Broadcasting, which he likened to the “Death Star.”
ESPN will up the ante in its recent multi-platform offensive, by offering the X Games almost any way you can imagine. Anywhere, any device — ESPN is putting this year’s X Games on multiple TV networks, iTunes, ESPN360, ESPN Mobile TV, and even a special X Games channel on MediaFLO’s mobile TV service. The X-centered EXPN.com will feature extensive coverage, with blogs, vlogs, podcasts, and more. Athletes will publish music playlists, and appear in countless hours of behind-the-scenes footage. The games start this Thursday in LA.
NOWPUBLIC has received over $10 Million in funding for bringing the crowd-sourcing phenomenon to a specific niche: news-gathering. NowPublic allows users to write their own news stories, submit photos, and link to news articles found on the web. The site claims over 100,000 members and 1 million uniques per month. NowPublic has established a partnership with the Associated Press to supply stories from “citizen journalists” in locales not covered by the AP’s network of professional reporters.