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.
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.
Scripps Wins Travel Channel Auction | AllThingsD
Scripps Networks Interactive has won the Travel Channel auction. In a deal that values the channel at $975 million, Scripps will acquire a majority interest in the property while current owner Cox retains a 35 percent stake. News Corp. (NWS), among others, had been bidding for the channel.
The deal will be structured as a joint venture, and Scripps (SNI) will kick $181 million into the new partnership; it will then issue another $878 million in debt.
“Many of us love movies, but we just can’t make it to the theater as often as we’d like. That is especially true for parents of young children, rural Americans who live far from the multiplex and people with disabilities that keep them close to home,” MPAA Chairman and CEO Dan Glickman said. “Having the added option to enjoy movies in a more timely fashion at home would be a liberating new choice.”
Sling Founder Blake Krikorian Investing In Web Video Guide ‘Clicker’ | SAI
Sling Media founder Blake Krikorian is investing in Clicker [...] Clicker hopes to be the 21st Century equivalent of TV Guide — the essential guide to Web video. It’s currently in private beta after launching at TechCrunch 50 earlier this year — one of our favorite startups to launch at the event. [Mag.ma - how's it looking?]
EBay Starts a Fashion Magazine | NYT
eBay is unveiling The Inside Source, an online magazine about fashion trends, written and edited by glossy magazine writers and pitching the trendiest items for sale on eBay. [...] People still think of eBay as an auction site, even though more than half of its goods are now sold at fixed prices [...] EBay gets a huge amount of data from watching what its 88 million users search for and buy, Ms. Barnett said, and the magazine is a way to highlight those trends. It is also a way to take fashion and pop culture trends and feature related items on eBay.
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