Archive for August 17th, 2007
This is a big deal. The creator of Family Guy, Seth McFarlane and the star of Disney’s That’s So Raven have teamed up with Media Rights Capital (MRC) to distribute video shorts via the Google Adsense network. Not ads per se, but video content with integrated branding. So instead of creating a video site that would hopefully attract an audience — or inking online video syndication deals — the plan is to distribute these videos via Adsense and target the “ads” to relevant audiences. “We feel this partnership answers the question of how best to reach viewers online, because the web is fragmented into millions and millions of viewing destinations,” said MRC Co-CEO Asif Satchu. “AdSense connects all of those fragments and offers us access to them in one simple and powerful distribution solution.” Adds Google exec Kim Malone, “This combination allows for the creation of original content that was historically too expensive to produce for Internet distribution and connects advertisers with high-quality content” The multi-million dollar deal will involve McFarlane creating new animated characters for 50 video shorts. Separately, Raven-Symone will host “how-to” clips.
August 17th, 2007
According to a post on the Silicon Valley gossip blog ValleyWag, Fark.com founder Drew Curtis says he’s “99 percent sure” that someone at WHBQ Fox 13 attempted to hack into his website’s servers. Here’s the comment thread on Fark.
Update: “Grab” mentions in comments that WHBQ just built OnMemphis, a cool blog aggregator. He writes, “In defense of the person involved, you (as in Lost Remote) just featured a site he built as ‘an example of what’s right’ with TV and the web. I just hope and imagine this is a big misunderstanding.”
True enough, the way Drew describes the “attack,” it sounds very unlikely.
August 17th, 2007
A report from the Army found that the Pentagon’s own military websites are posting more security breaches than those big, bad, anti-American military blogs out there. “It’s clear that official Army websites are the real security problem, not blogs,” said Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney Marcia Hofmann. “Bloggers, on the whole, have been very careful and conscientious. It’s a pretty major disparity.”
August 17th, 2007
Fans of the CBS reality show Big Brother 8 can now watch a dedicated 24/7 live feed from the house on their Verizon Wireless phones. The service is powered by V-CAST Mobile TV and MediaFLO — which is now available in 30 markets. While you may not be a big fan of Big Brother, you have to admit that broadcasting a dedicated 24/7 live feed to a cell phone is pretty cool. Press release…
Read the full post August 17th, 2007
With the MyFox deal, the Fox-affiliated television stations have just taken the path of least resistance in the area where they need to make the biggest strides. They have chosen ease over risk. In doing so, they have given away access to fully half their sales inventory. They have just sold their chances for success to a low bidder who is the only winner in the deal. And they are making the announcement that they are not interested in the local web at all. This is going to be a mortal wound, self-inflicted by people who still believe it’s TV first, then web as an afterthought.
Read the full post August 17th, 2007
