The Empire of Ari Emanuel
Leave it up to the NYT’s to create somewhat of a sensationalistic forum on the agency aftermath of the William Morris + Endeavor merger takeover. Under the headline “Mogul Ascends With Old Hollywood Clout,” the Times serves up little more than innuendo around golf games with outside investors, anonymous Hollywood insiders fearing both Ari and Rahm Emanuels, and finally, musical chairs or board seats with Ari on the Live Nation board. From Silicon Alley Insider - our preferred business read although they ditched their Entertainment blog “The Biz” somewhat quietly – made mention of the Ari Gold Ascendency of Emanuel, but both articles seem to only paint Ari as a hard ball player on the rise with a brother in the Obama Chief of Staff hot seat. One wonders how that fraternal conflict of interest can be of any use to either brother outside of easy sleepovers at the White House. Read more >>
Banking the Unbankable, Coinstar Empowers Young Gamers
Truth be told I’ve known about this initiative by Coinstar for a little while now, mainly through following one of the companies (Rixty) listed in the release, so I was thrilled to see this news hit the wires yesterday because it’s a great example of a traditional brick-and-mortar based business finding creative ways to get in the new media world game. The basic premise is that Coinstar is allowing consumers (read: pre-teen and teen gamers with no access to credit cards as a way of paying for their digital entertainment addiction – I mean, hobby) to turn in their coins in exchange for pre-paid spending cards for onling games, virtual worlds and social networks.
Tunezee to Make Music Search and Discovery More Effective
It’s always exciting to see industry friends/colleagues reach the impressive milestone of product launch, and it’s even more exciting when the product is something that actually has some legitimate potential. Such is the case with Tunezee, a music search and discovery engine co-founded by Ogi Todic, who I’ve had the pleasure of knowing for a few years now. I recently had the chance to touch base with Ogi and get some more details about Tunezee’s current business as well as their future plans.
Q: In a nutshell, what is Tunezee?
Have you ever remembered a few lines from a song, but have no idea who sings it or what the name of the song is? Tunezee allows you to find that song/artist through search using lyrics or other descriptors, confirm the results via our SmartKlip service, browse full lyrics of the song, view videos and purchase music and related merchandise. The SmartKlip service is a short music clip which corresponds to the search phrase. It allows you to hear exactly the part of the song that you’ve remembered. This will help you find the song you have in mind much faster. Read more >>
Angel Investors: No Bootstraps, No Problem (Maybe)
In the spirit of covering topics that my readers are interested in, today’s blog topic comes from a good friend and former colleague of mine (Ed) who wrote to me recently asking if I could write a “how-to” article of sorts about how to navigate the angel investor waters. In these challenging economic times, coupled with the complex landscape found in the venture and private equity worlds, angel investors occupy a very worthwhile niche within the start-up ecosystem. They offer a combination of funding (at lower amounts) and hands-on assistance that the majority of bigger money shops can’t or don’t offer – although as we’ve read recently a handful of them are starting to set up “seed bet” funds. Read more >>
XBox Gamechanger, Project Natal
From the latest E3 announcements – Project Natal – where “You are the Controller.” In an effort to blow past the Wii accelerometer, Microsoft’s anti-controller approach literally changes the game on console gaming. Many believed that Microsoft and Sony Playstation would have to merely copy the Wii remote to stay competitive, but with this latest “Minority Report” like gameplay (“sans remote”), one wonders if there is a competitive next step or manuever possible. With Spielberg as part of the E3 Announcement – the same Spielberg who partnered to create “Boom Blox” with Nintendo – the only issue now is workability – will the device match the demo?
Per SAI comments: Natal motion control has a special non-light sensitive sensor, an RGB sensor, a depth sensor, a multi-array microphone and a special processor, and will be packaged with future Xbox consoles. Definitely a very competitive game-changer to the Nintendo Wii.