Archive for August 20th, 2007
Wow, MTV and Real Networks’ Rhapsody service are teaming up to take on iTunes, and the new deal looks like it will put an end to MTV’s short-lived partnership with Microsoft. Reports the Wall Street Journal, “Microsoft has been heavily focused on its own Zune service in recent months, to the apparent detriment of Urge, which had few subscribers. MTV itself no longer invested significant resources in Urge after Zune’s debut, according to a person familiar with Urge.” Also, Verizon Wireless is on board for the new Rhapsody partnership, which is an interesting development in light of Cingular’s partnership with Apple on the iPhone. MTV plans to promote the new partnership extensively, especially in combination with its annual VMAs, which air on September 9th. (WSJ sub. req.)
August 20th, 2007
About three weeks ago, a new third-party application from Point2 called Neighborhoods made its debut on Facebook, and it’s very impressive. Already in Seattle, 1,200 users have selected their neighborhoods, which means they can now meet their neighbors, invite their neighbors to events, upload photos, browse real estate listings and post items on “The Wall” — a bulletin board of sorts. With the social network already established, you can just imagine what else they could add to the application. While media companies struggle with launching financially-viable hyperlocal destinations, Facebook is well on its way to doing it. Screen grab from the West Seattle neighborhood…
August 20th, 2007
- Some doubt that Tribune deal with Sam Zell will hold together
- Daily Show crew travels to Iraq (without a green screen)
- Fox News cancels mock news show 1/2 Hour News Hour
- Fox reality show Anchorwoman profiled, premieres Wednesday
August 20th, 2007
Frank N. Magid Associates have released the latest in their series of research on the media usage of “Millennials,” 18- to 29-year-olds. The study, reported by TV Week, cited Yahoo as being the number one news source for Millennials after the initial news of the Virginia Tech shootings. CNN followed, then cnn.com and FOX News. Take note, 2 of the top 4 sources for coverage were websites. The story also points out that word of mouth was actually the way 29% of Millennials learned of the shooting, but text messaging was included in word of mouth. I wish they had broken that out separately, as I suspect texting is increasingly becoming the way younger audiences spread news.
August 20th, 2007
