MediaBytes 11.08.2007

AOL has purchased advertising network QUIGO for around $350 million. Quigo sells ads for the sites of ESPN, Forbes, Time Inc. magazines and more. It will become part of the newly formed Platform A division. Time Warner announced its 3Q earnings yesterday, and AOL revenue was down 38% to $1.2 billion. Almost half of that Continue Reading →

MediaBytes 11.05.2007

THE WGA began its strike at midnight after Sunday’s 10-hour marathon negotiation broke down. Writers are expected to begin picketing at 9 AM this morning outside high-profile locations, including major studios on the West Coast and Rockefeller Center in New York. The Guild issued a memo telling its writers to spend at least 20 hours Continue Reading →

MediaBytes 11.02.2007

THE WRITERS GUILD negotiating committee has announced a unanimous recommendation to go on strike, perhaps as early as this Monday. The committee announced its decision Thursday night and drew an enthusiastic response from the meeting of 3,000 Guild members. The final decision is expected to be made at a meeting of the East and West Continue Reading →

MediaBytes 10.31.2007

SHAWN GOLD has resigned as SVP of Marketing and Content Development at MYSPACE to form consulting firm SOCIAL APPROACH. In an interview with Shelly Palmer at Digital Hollywood in LA, Shawn confirmed a rumor that was posted to paidcontent.org last week and said the new company plans to “help brands take advantage of social media Continue Reading →

MediaBytes 10.30.2007

GOOGLE will announce plans for Google-powered phones within the next two weeks according to The Wall Street Journal. The company has been approaching handset makers and aims to bring the phones to market by mid-2008. Google will offer an open operating system that encourages developers to create innovative new applications for phones and aims to Continue Reading →

MediaBytes 10.29.2007

COMCAST announced the loss of 65,000 basic-cable subscribers in the third quarter, which follows a loss of 95,000 subscribers in the previous quarter. The company is also seeing severely reduced growth in high-speed Internet subscribers. Comcast blames the customer erosion on increased competition from satellite and telephone companies. THE NBA is in talks with Turner Continue Reading →
Internet
Do you know how fast your Internet connection is? If you believe the hype on TV, DSL is a zillion times faster than dial-up and FiOS is a zillion times faster than DSL and Cable modems rock because of the triple play, blah, blah, blah. But what do you really know about your broadband connection to the outside world? Does is take all night to upload a big flash memory card's worth of photos to Kodak Easy Share? Do you have a static IP address? Can you access the files on your desktop computer from off premises? How quickly can you upload your files to an online back-up service? Continue Reading →

MediaBytes 10.18.2007

BEST BUY has stopped selling all analog TV sets and has ordered stores to pull unsold sets from the shelves, ensuring an all-digital holiday season. The mandate is an aggressive and bold move to prepare for the upcoming digital transition. The retailer has committed to selling digital-to-analog convertors and will stock them by early January. Continue Reading →

MediaBytes 10.04.2007

JEFF ZUCKER told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that content owners are “losing the battle” against piracy. Citing piracy as a cause for massive losses in jobs, revenues, and taxes, Zucker urged the Chamber to make it a top priority. Zucker said NBC Universal is “ripping apart old business models” to deal with the new Continue Reading →

MediaBytes 10.03.2007

MICROSOFT has announced new models of the Zune portable media player. The company now offers Zunes with more storage, better screens for watching video content, and wireless syncing with computers. Flash-based Zunes were also released. Microsoft pledged to improve its Zune software, and has created Zune Social, a networking site that encourages users to share Continue Reading →