Is super-sizing your funds a way to create venture runway to steer past or through the downturn and stay competitive in the global market? Many startups - like Mahalo, Ning and LinkedIn - pride themselves on raising enough funding to survive the nuclear winter of late 2008 and basically all of 2009. Facebook decided to add runway and incent its employees through a follow-on $100 million passive investment from DST, Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies group, who also put $180 million into Zynga in December.

Last Tuesday, Intel Capital and 24 VC firms set to put $3.5 billion over two years into US startups to bump up America’s competitive edge. Intel Capital is earmarking $200 million individually.

Via the NYT: in a program called the Invest in America Alliance, Cisco, Intel, Google and Microsoft, among other big tech employers, are hiring 10,500 US college tech grads to regain international ground lost. Per Intel’s Paul Otellini:

Unfortunately, long-term investments in education, research, digital technology and human capital have been steadily declining in the U.S. So, too, has the commitment to policies that made us such an entrepreneurial powerhouse for more than a century.

As many VCs raise more to create investment mines in nascent countries such as India and China, the market seems to be correcting in trending tides: first startups who squirreled away cash, Angel capital/investment groups who are finding High Wealth Individuals (HWIs) looking for early discounts, tech companies seeing their international talent and US competitive edges decreasing, and now VCs who see value in creating big funds.  

They called it the “Battle Royale” of media and entertainment. This year’s CES pitted Internet video upstarts like Hulu, Roku, and Boxee in a cage match against industry stalwarts such as Comcast and Time Warner. At stake: the hearts and minds of millions.

It was spun as a victor-versus-vanquished battle. It was either going to be Internet video’s David hoisting aloft the head of the Goliath that is cable TV, or cable mowing down Hulu and the others like so much other Internet roadkill.

At first glance, it appears that David is a stone’s throw from victory. The ever-crucial 18- to 24-year-old viewer, who spends $11 billion a year on entertainment, no longer watches TV as we know it. They are Cable’s Lost Generation. However, it turns out that they may not be as lost as we think.  

A lot of what we see on the Internet is digital publication; usually we can print it out. This notion underlies my grand unified theory of Internet video: treat it like publishing, not film or television, and this will become a viable industry.

Much of the film and television business is based on risk management. Will this show work? Maybe! So why make it? Because it’s based on this book that sold a million copies and it stars Brad Pitt and it’s a murder mystery and we know that murder mysteries are SO HOT right now, especially with teen girls in suburban neighborhoods. Every brand, talent and genre has a particular following, and we have a vague sense of how big that following is and who is in it. And the marketing people in Hollywood, they’re brilliant. They know exactly how to reach these audience pools and how much money to spend doing so. All things considered, if there’s a pretty good shot people will watch a show, and the projected audience is big enough to justify the cost, the project’s a go.  

With the new Apple iPad receiving an iHype or iYawn from the tech and media communities, a former colleague and Applephile, Patrick Kearney, suggested that Apple was crazy not to just acquire Adobe and own/integrate Flash. I counterpointed via the socialnet, that Adobe would be more integral to Google’s apps and offer a serious checkmate on Steve Jobs’ ability to close out his Apple hardware and software ecosystem.

The Google Value in Owning Adobe:

1. Keeps Google intrinsic to Apple, especially if Bing replaces Google Search across Safari, iPhone, iPad browsers and devices.
2. Adobe owns Omniture, an online marketing, data mining and analytics company, which it picked up in September 2009. Like Google’s acquisition of Urchin which became an invite-only Google Analytics and is now free for anyone. Omniture could be the premium or pro solution for big brands that need the stepabove solution, and of course crave CRM. It’s more behavioral, offers paid SEO across all search platforms, so it fits accretively.
3. Launch Google lite version of Photoshop and Dreamweaver (and…?) for its Google Apps. Many people are moving over to Gimp, an open source Photoshop design app, from outdated versions of Adobe’s Photoshop. This would democratize the products, while still offering premium versions that require a monthly subscription to remove the contextual ads and continue to innovate the product features for power-users before they go mainstream and free. Think of it as R&D for the premium, paying crowd who want the full version, and then as features become common, they go to the open, Google app public. This model of lite versus full versions is working well for the Apple Apps Store, and could move to an online subscription model to avoid distribution fulfillment and other retail packaging costs.
4. Ownership of Flash enhances YouTube’s dominance in online video. Pretty clear, Google labs up Flash internally and figures out ways to make it pay out more for its slowly monetizing video flagship. YouTube’s choice advertisers get premium Flash benefits; innovations trickle down to other top UGC performers.
5. Google Phones benefit from mobile improvements to Flash. The Android and Nexus One become more marketable, and Google licenses Flash to the Blackberries and other mobile players.
6. And, of course, the obvious: every media-savvy site uses Flash and it rolls up 75% of online video, plus marketers like flashy display banners, so Google owns more of the food chain - from media co’s to video players to brands and their agencies looking to stand out in a very noisy internet environment.

If the social or virtual goods market is exploding, expect it to also affect content online. Find a way to commoditize virtual content. So forget the Zygna virtual goodsvilles for a second, and start seeing 2010 as the  year of ubiquitous “content farming” - where all of the serious digital publishers start long-term planning. Writers and journalists will be told by their editors to create articles that - unless tabloid topical in nature - hold future or lifetime value. I.e., articles that stand the test of time, they don’t rest after a week, but gain continued readings  culminating in a heady 50,000 and up read count. Writers will be paid on ultimates: initial viewings, repeat viewings, sharing via social outlets,

The value of these lifetime posts? Well, to a Demand Media/Studios, AOL, Mahalo or similar, it’s a matter of quality (and quantity), think of it as quality based on what people are organically searching on Google, and quantity in terms of creating enough of a base of content that the YouTube’s of the world treat you as regulars. As YouTube’s video search is becoming a natural extension of text search, the ability to create posts in text and video is rapidly changing the landscape of content consumption. Users will start with the 10-step best of written articles, then graduate to video tutorials leading eventually to the user referring the post to others, include religious comment reading and the potential original user comment.

Sites like Huffington Post, the Gawker Network and other blog networks (blog nets) have been built on aggregated editorials - e.g., taking original posts from other relatively well funded or traditional media outlets and adding a little personal spin. That approach, while it’s worked out to a recent $300M valuation for Gawker’s templated Movable Type-hacked sites, may be changing as advertisers and publishers start jumping on the long tailed horse.  

A new take on the Nike Plus (Nike +) physical tracking device has finally gone into fulfillment on its pre-orders. I am playing with confirming my pre-order within the week - right in time for CES, but had to wait a very long while for the pre-order to commit.

As a media + lifestyle company, New Medici tracks innovation that crosses between media consumption and lifestyle products, so when we put in our pre-order a year ago, we - like many others - were not impressed that they ran nearly a year late on deployment without reaching out to the interested buying audience.

Now the pre-order confirmation has arrived, but that confirmation hiatus makes the transaction seem a little risky, even for a startup competing with Nike/Apple and Philips.

However, the Fitbit dashboard, the sleep-tracking and exercise analytics - we like that one of the reviews below called it “Google Analytics for the body” - make it something new and entrepreneurial, plus the product design and wireless connections are pretty unique.

A screenshot, but if this truly tracks our every step, bite and snore it will be worth the c-note ($100) price tag amortized over your health across several years.

2009 provided the best non-documentary film of the year in “The Hurt Locker” - it seems timely to take a few heroic stabs at predicting where media will be in the new year. Before 2009 times out in Los Angeles, a breakout of Media & Entertainment possibilities:

1. DVD - “Hurt Locker” is an apt metaphor for the film studios’ DVD departments, who had a substantial off-year, given the rise of online video distribution, gaming, rival HD dvd players and an economy that rewards a cheap theatrical ticket versus waiting for the long tail/queue of home video. Where they go next: Expect more depletion as consumers realize more and more that they really “can wait” for films to open in cheaper and more on-demand windows. Good Ron Grover/Business Week article on Netflix v. The Big Studios with colleague Ted Sarandos.
2. Consolidation - with Comcast finally getting its content networks in NBC/Universal, expect other big communication fish, who want to play in cable, to step up acquisition efforts, especially as traditional media joint ventures like Fox/NBC’s Hulu are growing stronger in online video. Hulu’s growth disrupts the tech hierarchy, so expect Microsoft and potentially Verizon to make a play that strengthens their content platforms while also giving them access to revenue-bearing cable networks. Where they go next: Verizon is definitely in talks around Viacom (who also should buy(back) Summit Entertainment fwiw), which would put AT&T in play - and anti-trust play for that matter - with potentially Viacom or some form of JV with Sony; or rolling up the mini-majors, Microsoft doubles down on its XBox audience with a Fox (a stretch) or Lionsgate (a good fit) acquisition. And yes, Microsoft and the others have shown little interest in owning content versus distribution, but with Google tied into Vevo + YouTube, and Comcast with NBC/Uni, it starts to make sense to own a production/distribution media co entity as a block or future trade in the ongoing consortium wars. Expect Discovery Channels and Fox to continue to buy while things are relatively cheap, with Liberty Media involved for guidance, and Peter Chernin potentially overseeing NBC/Uni or any one of the other consolidations.
3. Hollywood Talent - As written up in the past on “starpower brown-out,” entertainment and most media is moving away from the individual artist scenario and into the filmmaker stage. From the $500 production of “Panic Attack” which became a $30M film greenlight to the Stephenie Meyer “Twilight” Summit saga to Paramount’s “Paranormal Activity” grosses and “Star Trek,” Sony’s “District 9,” etc. - everyone is looking for the next big thing before it hits, but on the storytelling side instead of the usual talent/talking head side. If Tiger Woods is any example with his sponsor withdrawals, brands and big studios, will be looking for genuine or authentic (or ensemble) films that tell a good story well. Where they go next: They go to the agencies and structure  some form of bargaining position with less upfront and pay-or-play deals, including more backend equity and merchandising rights. Talent - including the J.J. Abrams and Tim Kring of “Heroes” - also begin creating more original IP that they can sell independently of their studio overhead deals. More Mel Gibsons, fewer Eddie Murphys - if that makes sense - going forward.
4. Personalized Content withinTechnology - With Apple’s highly expected iGuide or iTablet, Google Nexus One Phones and faster/stronger/better Wii’s, XBoxes and PS3/4s, consumers will find themselves spending more than 40% of their time online when not at work. The FiOS or U-Verse will offer more content than ever available, which will change consumer behavior - they simply will not have time for 5 much less 500 channels, and will turn to online to sort, niche and program their viewing around what their like-peers enjoy - think Boxee model here, which Comcast, DirecTV or TiVo buys. Where they go next: With all of these content inputs coming primary out of the tech space, traditional programming and brand advertising will change their models (slowly, although good to see Pepsi pull out of the Superbowl recently) to connect with the interactive or hyperinteractive crowds. To those who still favor a lean-back, couch potato lifestyle, it will still exist, but its metamorphosis will be personalized programming with either lean back or forward approaches.  If you think advertising CPMs/analytics online is a hearty business for Google, look forward to a bigger market when full-form content gets extremely searchable and programmable.
5. Content Windows - fewer theatrical releases and more pressure from all of the things that have been hurting DVD are going to force tighter windows, which will equate to lower initial returns, throwing off first run and second run/home entertainment revenues further. All of these predictions basically integrate together: consolidation, technology and talent reductions will reduce production costs, forcing films and series to perform immediately as content drivers, then be pushed into much less lucrative library pools. Where they go next: Consumers will see films and tv pilots as snapshots, unless like “The Dark Knight,” there are ARG’s supporting long-term audience capture. Content windows will ultimately be less important than content niches, whose niche audiences protect the media they like by buying it in every form available. Think “South Park,” “Family Guy” and the sinkholes of activity between the X-Men films. Hollywood or M&E will finally realize that they should have been actively trying to aggregate their audiences instead of dropping them between films, sequels and DVD windows. The labels’ 360 mentality will become a living/breathing habit for studios who want their brands - i.e., their films, not their corporate names - to have staying power.

That wraps up 2009 for New Medici - to newfound success and innovation in 2010!

Last day of the year, and pulling out those excerpts that have been gathering dust in the draft box. Stay tuned for the New Medici network to go live in Q1 2010, as well as a  breakdown of media companies for last year and going forward into the new year.

via How to Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions - WSJ.com

It is no secret that the odds against keeping a New Year’s resolution are steep. Only about 19% of people who make them actually stick to their vows for two years, according to research led by John Norcross, a psychology professor at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania.

But those discouraging statistics mask an important truth: The simple act of making a New Year’s resolution sharply improves your chances of accomplishing a positive change—by a factor of 10. Among those people who make resolutions in a typical year, 46% keep them for at least six months. That compares with only 4% of a comparable group of people who wanted to make specific changes and thought about doing so, but stopped short of making an actual resolution, says a 2002 study of 282 people, led by Dr. Norcross and published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

via How Google Can Combat Content Farms

• Neutralize the link dilution; A.J. Kohn, who further wrote that “the introduction of SearchWiki, their measurement of short-clicks versus long-clicks, the new domain/brand SERP listing, snippet links, and use of breadcrumbs all point to a gathering movement to help determine quality without such a reliance on an ever diluted link ecosystem.”
• Do a better job ranking authority; for more on this read Clay Shirky’s post on “Algorithmic Authority.”
• Introduce a user rating system; Tony Masinelli.
• Leverage sharing networks to determine where the quality is; Alex Kessinger.  
  

On today’s TenSpot - counting down to Vevo’s launch - how can it improve on the Hulu model and get subscriptions/micro and macro (macro being monthly/yearly subscriptions?) transactions; MySpace backgrounder from FT; Aardvark (Vark.com) social search eyed by Google - a blocking move for Eric Schmidt (@ericschmidt) on Twitter?; a brilliant NYT article on Jerry Maguire as “Representative Man”; niche private sale site OneKingsLane.com’s funded by Kleiner Perkins; Peter Liguori to Discovery to grown OWN; and Mahalo reaching 13M uniques quickly…

via I want my Vevo: Will video site be next-gen MTV? - CNET News

[Note: New Medici is working on Vevo's launch campaign with client MP+G] Rio Caraeff, Vevo’s CEO, says the music video is only one of the site’s features. The obligatory playlists will be available but music lyrics will also be offered. Vevo’s mission is to attract [cpm] rates of $25 to $40.  “What we’re really doing is taking back control of everything,” said [Doug] Morris, who operates the largest of the top four recording companies. “This is us taking control of our future…Vevo enables us to provide consumers with about 80 percent of all the music videos in the world. So, this is really like MTV on steroids. We’re starting with that kind of audience. But now we’re in control of it. We don’t have to go through a middleman anymore.”

via The rise and fall of MySpace - FT

[Long article but light in reporting from FT - doesn't talk about why things went haywire, Levinsohn's reason for departing, but good overview for newbies] But by the beginning of 2008, things began to sour. Facebook, a rival social network that was simpler and easier to use, was gaining momentum and starting to grow more quickly than MySpace. Murdoch confidently told the world that MySpace would make $1bn in advertising revenues in 2008 – but the company missed its target. Users began to desert the site, which had become cluttered with unappealing ads for teeth straightening and weight-loss products.

A potential interactive page-turner - think iTunes for magazines, books (much less multimedia sexy) and especially daily print.  Time Inc. and The Wonder Factory put together a demo on a HP touchscreen, and for those with tablets, potential online subscription and micro-transactions loom.

Via The Death Of The Blog Post - Smashing Magazine, there’s a discussion of how much the design of individual posts adds value to the read - similar to strong copy, quality posts versus mass-news, pop cultural clippings (aka standard blogs).

Is it the timeliness, frequency or relative exclusivity or breaking news factor that makes certain articles into reader magnets or SEO payloads?

RSS readers are jam-packed with articles every day, and chances are, the articles that don’t get your full attention will get lost in the crowd. Keep your short musings and thoughts for Posterous and Twitter, and spend some real time hand-crafting well-thought-out articles. You’ll satisfy both yourself and your readers.

On an altruistic side, blogs and blog nets create open discussion, communication and the free sharing of news, but if you opt for more design, will the quality of the writing always be premium?

Or does more design - see the Gizmodo/Techcrunch quote after the jump - mean continued budget losses at big publishing houses, tied to high-priced writers? Yes, the design and publishing world will move to the upcoming Tablet like the music labels beat a path to iTunes.

via The Media Equation - For Media, a Sunset Is Followed Quickly by a Sunrise - NYT

For those of us who work in Manhattan media, it means that a life of occasional excess and prerogative has been replaced by a drum beat of goodbye speeches with sheet cakes and cheap sparkling wine. It’s a wan reminder that all reigns are temporary, that the court of self-appointed media royalty was serving at the pleasure of an advertising economy that itself was built on inefficiency and excess. Google fixed that.

via The $20m Actor…Who Needs ‘Em? | ZDONK

I like to think of it like this: Every time a studio green lights a movie for production, it’s like they’re investing in a company. Some companies are run by charismatic leaders who are proven winners ($20 million actors), but if that company’s agenda and business model (script) are weak, then it doesn’t matter who the CEO is. I have to imagine that every Fortune 500 company started out with a great concept, not some name brand face.

via Spotify CEO Confident For 2010 U.S. Launch

“Subscription doesn’t work on its own because that’s been proven for 10 years as well,” Ek continued. “But the combination of an ad pricing model and a subscription model does. So far, in terms of Spotify, we haven’t actually spent any money at all on marketing. But what we have done is that we have taken a lot of people in using the free service, they start using the free service and they find attractive options such as becoming a paid user because they wanted to have [the service] on their mobile phone or they wanted to have higher volume quality… and they’ve done so now at the scale where we can say that we’re the biggest subscription service in Europe.”  

Ken Auletta’s new book is a journalist’s take on the Google phenomenon. He conducted interviews with some 150 current and former Google employees as well as the CEO Eric Schmidt and the normally media-shy founders Larry and Sergey.

Read the transcript from the Charlie Rose interview. And the addendum of 25 media maxims to create a consequential media empire in the digital age. Full download after the jump…

25 Media Maxims

1. Passion wins
2. Focus is required
3. Vision is required
4. A team culture is vital
5. Treat engineers as kings
6. Treat customers like kings
7. Brand often means trust
8. Every company should strive to take the risks out of capitalism
9. Every company is a frenemy
10. The speed of change accelerates
     

EXCLUSIVE: Carl Icahn Buying Up MGM Bonds “Like A Bat Out Of Hell” – Deadline.com

As for Icahn’s intentions for MGM, film financing circles think he’s going after the studio because he wants it for his son. True, Icahn wanted to give one of the four Lionsgate board seats he was seeking to his 29-year-old offspring Brett. A Princeton grad like his dad, Brett worked for years under the radar as an analyst for his dad’s investment company. He has been one of 10 young traders moving the firm’s cash and its hedge fund, which the family started two years ago with $1 billion.

Rupert Murdoch’s Guy Gets It | Newser

If Arthur Miller were at it again, he’d call the play Death of a PR Guy. Gary Ginsberg, Murdoch’s PR guy who got the ax yesterday, used to beg me not to call him a PR Guy—his official title was Executive VP of Global Marketing and Corporate Affairs—but that was his job: making Murdoch look good.  

You-Be-The-Terrorist Videogame Sales Reach $600 Million In 5 Days | SAI

In one week, Activision and Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has raked in more cash than any form of entertainment for sale. It sold around 9.4 million copies of the first-person shooter game in five days and made $600 million.

via Here’s Proof Originality Doesn’t Pay in Hollyw’d | The Wrap

Some enterprising Wikipedia contributor decided to pull together a list of the 50 films with the highest worldwide gross of the decade so far. One has to go all the way down to No. 15 on the list, Disney/Pixar’s “Finding Nemo,” before finding one created from original material — in other words, not a sequel, remake or adaptation of existing material or characters (such as Batman or Harry Potter).

via Andy Plesser: YouTube Integrated with Huffington Post, NPR, Politico and SF Chronicle

YouTube has introduced a solution for media sites to moderate and post video uploads from visitors. The Huffington Post, NPR, Politico and the San Francisco Chronicle are the first media companies to use the system which is called YouTube Direct. The system allows registered YouTube users to upload videos directly to a media site. These videos are also seen on the member’s personal YouTube channel.  

Just presented my keynote at XMediaLab’s Amsterdam 2009 conference on public media - think PBS, CBC or BBC. Goals were presenting general strategy re protecting media investment; avoiding cannibalization, i.e.,  disruption not destruction of value; viewing lifestyle media as the new inclusive parent of entertainment media (as opposed to Big Media owning lifestyle media); and carving out rights to build audience while marrying these niche communities to brands.

A must-view from the Monaco Media Forum: Arianna Huffington from Huffington Post debating with Axel Spring AG CEO Mathias Dopfner, who runs one of the largest newspaper publishing companies in Europe. A very sophisticated debate on traditional publishing versus internet/aggregated or citizen journalism; plus, Arianna’s key quote on “traditional media versus digital media: ADD versus OCD.”

Spielberg: Have Movies Will Travel…. Again? - BusinessWeek

Even before Steven Spielberg’s newly reformulated Dreamworks SKG makes its first film, his studio is moving for a third time – well, sort of. BusinessWeek has learned that the Dreamworks operation, headed by Spielberg and producing partner Stacey Snider, is moving the rights to show its movies on pay TV from Starz (LMDIA) to Showtime (CBS).

The Hot New Business Of Virtual Goods - SAI

NYT: Analysts estimate that virtual goods could bring in a billion dollars in the United States and around $5 billion worldwide this year — all for things that, aside from perhaps a few hours of work by an artist and a programmer, cost nothing to produce. “It’s a fantastic business,” said Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Venture Partners, a venture capital firm that has invested $10 million in several virtual goods companies. “Because it’s digital, the marginal cost for every one you sell is zero, so you have 100 percent margins.”

FunnyorDie.com: ‘SNL’ for the online crowd - LAT

Since its launch, the site has transcended the initial hype of Ferrell and McKay’s debut video, “The Landlord” (with 66.7-million views and counting). Now it’s a fledgling new media studio with a CEO, a Silicon Valley office and a reported ($15-million investment. (Though the site is making money, it hasn’t turned a profit, according to those familiar with its finances. McKay calls it “our not-for-profit theater.”) For the legions of comic unknowns out there, the site offers another way to network and possibly get discovered. For the A-listers, it is a creative outlet, set apart from the conglomerates running entertainment, that may not earn them a dime but pays off with street cred on the comedy scene.)  

Chart: U.S. Virtual Goods Revenue Ready To Explode | SAI

The virtual goods market in the U.S. is ready to take off. Right now, the U.S. only has 28% of the total market. By 2013, the U.S. will make up 41% of the market with $2.5 billion in sales, according to research from Piper Jaffray.

The Decade of Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple | Fortune

He’s a visionary, but he’s grounded in reality too, closely monitoring Apple’s various operational and market metrics. He isn’t motivated by money, says friend Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500). The financial results have been nothing short of astounding — for Apple and for Jobs. The company was worth about $5 billion in 2000, just before Jobs unleashed Apple’s groundbreaking “digital lifestyle” strategy, understood at the time by few critics. Today, at about $170 billion, Apple is slightly more valuable than Google.

CollegeHumor May Go to Ben Silverman Venture | Advertising Age

The deal would have Connected Ventures, parent of CollegeHumor and just-launched TV-production arm Notional, folded into Electus. [...] Connected Ventures is at the core of those content efforts, but Mr. Diller is said to lack confidence that the group can effectively monetize the properties it creates. Last week, Mr. Diller said investment in original content would account for “less than 10%” of the $1.8 billion the company will have in cash over the next few years.

The End of  ‘Oprah’ as We Know Her: Daytime Diva Giving Up Syndie Talk Show & Moving It To Her Cable Network in 2011| Deadline

One of the biggest questions in the TV biz has been when, and even if, Oprah Winfrey would give up her daytime syndicated talk show to focus on OWN, her long delayed Oprah Winfrey Network in 70 million homes that was supposed to launch in place of the Discovery Health Channel as a joint venture between Winfrey and Discovery Communications.  

via Is Hollywood always in panic mode? Ari Emanuel’s history lesson | The Big Picture | Los Angeles Times

[Ari Emanuel slipped this 1970 Life magazine to his agents recently. Per Patrick Goldstein:] Don’t overreact to the current studio cost-cutting frenzy. As this story makes all too clear, the more things change, the more things stay the same. Studios always think they can make the movie business into a more rational enterprise, but that’s a bean-counter fantasy. Making movies will always require a leap of faith.

Just as today’s studio chiefs think that they can now make “Transformers” and “Hangover”-style hits without movie stars, Bluhdorn was convinced that high-priced talent was superfluous. “You get from these big stars a document of conditions of how many hours they’ll work, what they’ll do and won’t do…. Well, who needs them? With today’s young audiences, names won’t sell a picture anymore. A great script and a devoted director — that’s what makes things happen. Substitute “special effects” for ”script” and you could easily slip those words into any of today’s studio bosses’ mouths.

via YouTube’s Content Head Jordan Hoffner Leaving To Join Ben Silverman’s New Venture | paidContent.

Jordan Hoffner, the head of content partnerships for YouTube, is leaving the company, and joining Ben Silverman’s new content venture at IAC (NSDQ: IACI), we have learned. The move from YouTube was announced internally today. This is the second senior digital exec to join Silverman’s venture, after we first reported on Drew Buckley also joining it last month.

via But Who’ll Break Up The Fistfights? – Deadline.com.

James Murdoch, Howard Stringer, Les Moonves, David Zaslav, and, interestingly, Comcast’s Brian Roberts and GE’s Jeff Immelt back to back, will be speaking at the annual hush-hush Quadrangle confab being held Wednesday and Thursday in NYC. [...] Speakers — Emilio Azcárraga, Grupo Televisa; Dennis Crowley, Foursquare; Barry Diller, Iac; Brian Dunn, Best Buy; Charles Forman & Dan Porter, Omgpop; Reed Hastings, Netflix; Reid Hoffman, Linkedin. More after the jump…  

via HuffPost Game Changers: Who Is The Ultimate Game Changer In Philanthropy: The Extraordinaries

Making it effortless to add brief volunteer activities to your busy day. The Extraordinaries delivers information via mobile phone about micro-volunteer opportunities that can be done on-demand and on-the-spot. Standing in line at the DMV? Sure you can listen to music on your iPhone, but won’t you feel better about yourself if you use that iPhone to spend those stray minutes adding identifying tags to museum photos, or translating a Spanish document into English? With over 700 million smartphones expected to be in use by 2012, these innovators see billions of hours of spare time ready to be tapped into for the greater good.

Killer Quote: “We hope people might look differently at that ride on the bus and not just play video games. Micro-volunteerism is perfectly suited for the Millennial Generation. They are used to text messaging, MySpace, Facebook, get-in, get-out, instant gratification.” Must Click Link: BeExtra.org

via Sony Posts Fourth Consecutive Quarterly Loss SNE | SAI

Sony SNE lost $292 million in the quarter ending in September, the company announced this morning. This marks the fourth consecutive loss for Sony. It is now predicting that losses for the year will total ¥95 billion ($1 billion).

via The New York Times’ Coming Jihad Against The Huffington Post | 24/7 Wall St

There has been a great deal of speculation about what the basis of a suit of The Huffington Post by The New York Times would look like in legal terms. First Amendment attorney David Marburger has said in widely circulated comments that the best legal leverage that the old media has is to get Congress to amend the Copyright Act to restore the common law as a way to fight unfair enrichment that aggregators get by utilizing content created by other media.

The Huffington Post recently passed The Washington Post and LA Times in terms of the visitors each has to its website each month. Huffington’s revenue is rumored to be small, perhaps as little as $8 million this year. As that number grows, it will take more advertising share from its old media rivals.

Update: Several sources have told 24/7 that a suit by old media may be brought under the Interstate Commerce Act.

via Can Nintendo Rebuild? - BusinessWeek

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata told financial analysts and journalists that the company had been unprepared for the sudden drop in sales of its Wii living-room game console. “We sensed that the market mood was cooling off in the spring,” he said. “But frankly, we hadn’t expected to get as bad as it did by summer.” In the past six months the stock has slid 22%.

In the July-September quarter, Nintendo’s operating profit dropped 52%, while sales slid 28%. Nintendo now expects full-year profits of $4 billion on $10.9 billion in sales, instead of $5.4 billion in profits and $19.7 billion in revenues. Last fiscal year, the company had its best year ever, raking in profits of $6.1 billion on revenues of $20.1 billion.  

via ‘Paranormal’ Now the Most Profitable Film Ever | The Wrap

“Blair Witch’s” $248.6 million worldwide haul a decade ago – juxtaposed against its $60,000 production costs – represented an almost unthinkable 414,233 percent return on investment. Doing the same basic ROI math on “Paranormal” (65.1 million minus 15,000 divided by 15,000 times 100) yields an equally unfathomable result of 433,900 percent.

via Jackson has earned $72 mil since death| THR

Even before the “This Is It” opening, Michael Jackson had earned $90 million in the past year, with most of it coming since his death five months ago. That sizable sum put him third on the Forbes list of dead celebrities making the most money.

via CBS Digital Exec Quincy Smith Eyes New Role in Investment Banking | AllThingsD

[Posted May 11, 2009] Quincy Smith, who guided CBS through a series of big transactions during the Web 2.0 era, is planning his next deal: a move to start his own boutique investment bank or consultancy. Smith is still running the CBS Interactive unit, a job he took in November 2006. But he has been telling associates recently that he plans to start his own company, possibly as soon as this summer.  

It’s Diller-Day in terms of a quarterly IAC earnings. His creative collective with Ben Silverman (formerly of NBC and Reveille is “Electus” - cool ‘Digitas’ type newco name), updates from Dreamworks Animation, Hulu, Circle of 8 on Myspace, 3D TV penetration, TV Everywhere … and the trailer premiere of “The Green Zone” (Matt Damon’s more authentic Jason Bourne war-thriller film), will be interesting to see how it avoids the stop-loss effect of Gulf war films. AND we’re planning thetenspot.com launch in December - looking for user-generated logos - send to logos@newmedici.com!

via IAC Reports 3Q Profit But Ad Revenue Down | Huffington Post

Counting one-time events such as a large gain on a stock sale and the sale of Match’s European operations, IAC earned $21.7 million, or 16 cents per share, on $337 million in revenue. In the same period a year ago it lost $14.8 million, or 11 cents per share. IAC did not give a substantive update on its new media venture with former NBC Entertainment co-chairman Ben Silverman, other than to say it will be called “Electus.” The venture was announced in July and will let advertisers have a say in the development process for TV shows and Web videos.  

Deadline / #1 ‘Paranormal Activity’ Scares Away Weekend Rivals

[Nikki Finke] can report that, as it expands for next Halloween weekend, the studio is starting to think the thriller has a shot at $100M. Which would make this the most profitable pic in modern Paramount history. After all, the project was acquired for a mere $300K, and the studio spent under $10M total on prints and advertising, “so this will be the best return Paramount has ever had,” an insider tells me. Amazing, since Paramount had been playing the movie mostly at midnight shows and in just a 100 or so dates. Then again, the hype has been so successful — right down to the claim that Steven Spielberg screened it and returned it in a trash bag.

Reuters / Paramount Digital Entertainment’s Supernatural Series Circle of Eight to Premiere Exclusively on MySpace

Circle of Eight tells the story of a young woman who moves into an historic building, The Dante, where she encounters an assortment of neighbors harboring a mysterious secret that unravels in a chain of deaths and supernatural interactions. Multiple levels of interactive content enhance the audience’s connection with Circle of Eight, including hidden clues, an online and mobile game, and exclusive material that can be unlocked through game play.

Viewers can tune into MySpace at www.myspace.com/circleof8 now to watch the first three episodes of the series. Following the online run on MySpace, Circle of Eight will be available for rent exclusively at participating BLOCKBUSTER® stores, as well as by mail and through BLOCKBUSTER On Demand®.  The full-length film will have additional scenes and a surprise alternate ending.

FT.com / UK - Hollywood told to rewrite script

Mr Iger advocates a thorough re-examination of costs associated with marketing and film production. The solution, he said, required “research and development, risk-taking . . . real focus on changing the status quo”. Next month Disney plans to unveil Keychest, a new technology that will allow digital copies of films to be stored remotely and then viewed and moved across several platforms, such as smartphones, or games consoles such as Microsoft’s Xbox.

Yahoo! News / Disney CEO calls for rethink of movie model

Iger advocated a fundamental rethink of the costs associated with movie production and marketing. Disney’s movies studios, which account for about 15 percent of the media conglomerate’s revenue, suffered a 12 percent fall in sales in the quarter to June 27 and swung to an operating loss of $12 million.

Broadcasting & Cable / Rupert’s Main Man: Q&A With News Corp.’s Chase Carey

[Chase Carey] I think cable networks are a great business; they have a lot of room to grow. The areas that would be at the top of the list would be international, which is a place to which we bring a unique set of strengths. In some ways, the international market is uniquely appealing. You always want to be an opportunist with the content businesses. There are ways to really expand that content portfolio. If I look at our cable group, it’s not where I’d like it to be today. I look at Discovery, it’s a road map of where I’d like to be.

NYTimes / Eisner’s Web Video Studio, Vuguru, to Emerge With Backing

Bolstered by an investment from Rogers Communications, one of Canada’s largest media companies, the budding new-media mogul Michael Eisner is expanding his Web video studio.

Mr. Eisner [...]  intended to increase production of the programming that he started financing two and a half years ago. Under a dozen series have been released by Vuguru to date, but he would like the company years from now to be producing 30 series a year. “The most important thing is volume, honestly,” he said. Mr. Eisner said he expected Vuguru to generate 10 to 12 series in 2010, gradually building up to the goal of 30 a year.  

A must-read for followers of Big Media - or would it be High Media given the mogul personalities involved(?) - The Curse of the The Mogul delivers an academic treatment on how digital media is forcing the studio or communication mogul’s work to be more transparent and hence more competitive. It’s argued that in the past, the lure or image of Hollywood allowed more mogul leeway as running a studio, handing the creative industry, “managing a Jennifer Lopez,” etc. was harder to quantify. With digital both making the studio returns or numbers easier to read, public and shareable, creating transparency; and, lowering the cost of entry for new digital companies to immediately step into publishing, video and home entertainment, creating more competition, the mogul is more and more clearly “wearing the emperor’s clothes” in a quickly diminishing empire or moguldom.  

As Media & Entertainment continues to try to innovate to support new platforms like Facebook, Twitter (and Google), there continues to be new research that resurrects mobility, i.e., cell phones.

It’s not just the iPhones that are driving your studio I.T. divisions insane, but if you really want to go global with your media footprint, you no longer can ignore developing hard for mobile platforms.

The mobile runway is open, but will be getting very crowded; which is okay, because there’s no longer a walled garden - or to use my ‘runway’ metaphor, a secured airport - so there’s plenty of room to take-off with mobile.

• 10x number of new mobile devices each computing cycle (smatphones, Kindles, Nooks, Couriers, tablets, netbooks)
• Mobile adoption curve is 8x steeper than desktop
• iPhone + iTouch ecosystem fastest hardware user growth in tech history

After the jump, the Morgan Stanley presentation from Mary Meeker’s Web 2.0 presentation…