Larry Brilliant: Chief Philanthropy Evangelist
One of the better jobs in the Google economy (and yes, that ‘Googleconomy’ has been halved, but is still backed by some of the most innovative minds in tech and beyond) – running Google.org’s active philanthropic arm – just got a little more active for Larry Brilliant, who’s transitioning to “Chief Philanthropic Evangelist.” Per Google’s blog earlier this week, Brilliant (luckily an appropriate, not ironic name) set out that he is more the ‘ideas and partnership’ maker than the operational executive. His long-time colleague Megan Smith takes over day-to-day running of Google.org. I’ve met Larry a few times at Google Zeitgeist conferences and via my past role at Participant Media; and, as a “rainmaker of change,” it’s good to see Larry move into a more idea-centric role. What made this announcement interesting to New Medici was: when should a thought leader move away from day-to-day operations and concentrate on advancing/innovating the company’s cause directly? Read more >>
This Week in Hulu
It’s been a interesting week for Fox/NBC’s Hulu. (Per Wikipedia, Hulu offers commercial-supported streaming video of TV shows and movies from NBC, Fox and many other networks and studios.) A week ago, Hulu removed its content from both TV.com and open-source media center, Boxee, thereby removing one of the only ways to watch Hulu content on your television. As Fred Wilson explains on his blog post entitled “Why Hulu Should Embrace Boxee”: Read more >>
Peter Chernin to Exit Murdoch’s News Corp., Who Wins?
We wouldn’t have predicted such a move with the succession plans of most studio heads being ‘muddled’ at best, but Rupert Murdoch (Innovator/Benefactor) has made a industry-loud judgment call. Based on Murdoch’s legacy plan for his son, James Murdoch, to take over from Chernin, News Corp. President & COO, this leaves Chernin with a 6-year production deal, $40M in severance and a number of other high-flying amenities. So, who wins? Chernin or Murdoch? More after the jump… Read more >>
Slumdog Benefactors
Watching Jerry Lewis receive his humanitarian award at the Oscars tonight, I was struck by the swell of respect that I felt for this classic comedian, who had raised $2B for muscular dystrophy. Showing his first function in 1951 for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (yes, 58 years ago), it was hard to pull back and enjoy the extravagance of the Oscars afterwards. On the other hand, seeing “Slumdog Millionaire” take home award after award with such honest dignity and a sense of humanitarian-meets-cinematic integrity was rewarding. Read more >>
Reelist.com: Oscar Night
A swell of interest in this year’s Oscars with a lot of predictable winners. A spirited Independent Spirit Awards yesterday with a few surprise winners (Penelope Cruz, Tom McCarthy for The Visitor, and The Wrestler as best feature, among others). And to top it off, a river of new blogs with more penetration into Hollywood studio behavior.
Here’s a few we’ll be watching tonight via RSS and comparing to tomorrow’s trade coverage:
- The Wrap: Sharon Waxman’s new Hollywood, trade-scrimmager.
- The Daily Beast: Tina Brown’s tabloid-take on politics and media. Read more >>
What’s the “Thread Count” of Your Friend Count?
I had coffee with a longtime investor colleague who threw a nice metaphor in my direction: “thread count” as it related to the depth of your friendships. As we all initiate, accept or add new digital relationships into our lives (yes, I did get ‘social’ with LinkedIn back in its early years with 1,500 linkedins; more recently with ~650 Facebook friends), how do we measure the relative quality of the quantity of friends we connect to? Do we connect to add relative quality value to our own persona, or is it done merely to create a personal, i.e., quantitative, fan club of sorts? Read more >>
The Crisis of Credit – Visualized
Finally, a JibJab-esque (“This Land is Your Land”) video on the credit crunch. As a thesis project, the practicality and enjoyment factor created by Jonathan Jarvis’ innovative little short is well worth publication (outside of academia). Boing Boing does a pretty fair job, via its comments, in analysis how correct the video is. As far as PSAs – public service announcements – there has to be some model in original programming online and off that will support artists reinterpreting modern society. Last year’s great example was GirlEffect.org, funded within the $100M that Nike Foundation and Warren Buffett put together. Who are the Sinclair Lewis’ of modern video exploration+creative visualization today?
TED Conference 2009: Corporate Sponsors
From Google.org to Gucci, TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design.) boasted 39 corporate sponsors – 17 with noted initiatives – for it’s recent 2009 conference, TEDTalks line-up on Feb 2-7, 2009. This appears part of a growing trend for brands to bring more meaning to their advertising. Other than outpricing or simple descriptive / comparison branding initiatives, the focus has shifted into“What are you doing to make a difference?”, tell me about it and I’ll be more likely to listen. Read more >>
Dreamworks’ Reliance on Disney
Just in case you actually might have been living in Fantasyland for a portion of last month, and missed the news of the Disney/DreamWorks (with Reliance funding) deal here’s a recap, background info and a few innovation questions good measure. Walt Disney Studios will be marketing 6 DreamWorks live-action features per year. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Disney will earn at least an 8 percent fee off the box office gross of DreamWorks films, and would lend the studio $150 million. Read more >>
The Maze of Mobile Innovation
It may be true that Nokia sells more phones in a month than Apple has sold of the iPhone 3G since its release last July. It may also be true that the iPhone is not the ultimate expression of mobile computing and communication, or that the negatives associated with its closed platform will outweigh the positives. And it is undoubtedly true that anyone who works in the mobile industry, particularly in California, is suseptible to Apple Fanaticism, the iPhone Bubble of Hype, and a distorted sense of the iPhone’s penetration across the country and around the world. Read more >>
Reelist.com: Oscars’ Round-Up
What do Adrien Brody, Three 6 Mafia, and Shakespeare in Love have in common? They all won Oscars. And you didn’t think they would. That’s right. At the end of the day, the human brain is far too limited to ascertain with any true degree of certainty who will end up with the austere, naked, Bruce Willis-meets-the Tin Man-lookin’-fella at the end of the night.
But the thing is: It feels really, really good when you’re right. Read more >>
Blackberry Storms: 2 for $100 via Verizon
How’s this for innovative spending during a recession? Get a new Blackberry Storm for you and someone special at $50 each. In New Medici’s Marketplace section, we look forward to bringing you innovative buys and items of interest. The original story (@ $100/per Storm) was gleaned from Silicon Alley Insider, re buy a Blackberry Storm, get one free, with a 2-year commitment for $200, i.e., one Storm for $100. In need of upgrading two Blackberry 8830s to Storms, once the NYTimes David Pogue article fracas cleared, I would recommend this newer offer. Details after the jump… Read more >>
Social Media vs. Privacy on the Web
I’ll admit it. I’m a social media junkie. And it’s not difficult to satisfy my addiction, considering the large number of social media sites that are quickly popping up as of late. But it has also got me thinking – considering the popularity of social media sites these days, should we be more concerned about our privacy? 5 years ago, it was only the early adopters who were on sites like MySpace and Friendster and most people were weary of sharing too much on the internet. These days Facebook has well over 100 million registered users, and over 222 million visitors per month. After the jump, a list of some of latest and greatest social media sites, along with ways you can ensure that the whole world knows everything about you… Read more >>
Sabbaticalist: Tom Freston
How’s this for a final (yet not final) corporate act: September 5, 2006, 1,500+ Viacom employees crowded the corporate plaza to wish Tom Freston a goodbye when he was released from his contract by Sumner Redstone. Since that fateful send off, Freston has visited over 30 countries on what some would call a “$60M Sabbatical,” i.e., the amount of severance he received after serving 19 years at Viacom. Add to that, Freston became “non-committal” – not in the typical sense (he still helped causes and companies he admired), but more in the sense that he didn’t need a job as many came calling. He became “The Sabbaticalist.” Read more >>
Imagenation at Work in Abu Dhabi
In 2008, a new financing arm made a serious amount of noise in the M&E, or Media and Entertainment space. The new multi-billion dollar fund to create an innovative media+cultural center, named after its geographic location: TwoFour54. On top of that, imagenation was formed with $1B to develop content for Middle Eastern/Arabian and international markets; as well of course, as programming for the western markets. Just about every studio mogul was intrigued about this new source of equity financing to support their production slates. En route from the Cannes Film Festival, entertainment execs and their attorneys flocked en masse to Abu Dhabi, curious and hungry for a new influx of foreign capital, as past domestic and international equity lines were dry. Read more >>
Extending TV on the Web
While browsing Hulu recently, I discovered that the site had “enhanced” versions of episodes of one of my favorite shows, Battlestar Galactica. After clicking on the episode to find out what it was, I was extremely excited to discover that it was basically an episode of Battlestar Galactica, along with running commentary by Ron Moore – the show’s creator. Now Ron’s been doing commentary on episodes pretty much ever since BSG started. It started out as just a podcast, which I could either listen to without seeing the video in front of me, or I could put onto my IPod, go home and run BSG from my DVR and listen to commentary at the same time. Read more >>
What Would Google Do (to Innovate Next)?
Jeff Jarvis’ book came out this past week – yes, we recommend buying it immediately as we did – and then BusinessWeek does a related cover story. Most be a good week for Jarvis, whose BuzzMachine blog and regular Davos’ accolades help him challenge businesses to iterate more openly and innovate their practices. Per Chris Anderson (of the Long Tail): “Google is not just a company, it is an entirely new way of thinking about understanding who we are and what we want.” But where does Google go next? Read more >>
