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.  
  

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.)  

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.  

At New Medici we’re intrigued by niche content networks and how they grow, survive and generally roll-up niche audiences. With AOL’s announcement of MediaGlow via NYT, we dug around to see how it was really working. From the articles, PR and even comment threads at Techcrunch, it seems that AOL, former traffic portal hub, now new anti-portal, is turning a corner.