The Ten Spot: Nov 30, 2009
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For those of us who work in Manhattan media, it means that a life of occasional excess and prerogative has been replaced by a drum beat of goodbye speeches with sheet cakes and cheap sparkling wine.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.” Read more >>
The Ten Spot: Nov 17, 2009
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. Read more >>