Articles of the Day
Moonves Details Digital Strategy For CBS - While Web-related financials were typically sparse, CBS head Leslie Moonves did provide key insights into the company’s digital dealings during Tuesday’s fourth-quarter earnings call. Moonves also discussed how CBS has been financing various digital initiatives. “We’ve pruned our asset mix to shed some of our lower-growth businesses like certain small-market TV and radio stations,” he said. “We’ve used a portion of the proceeds to invest in other higher-growth areas like Last.fm.” Late last month, through deals with Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG, Warner Music Group, and EMI Group, CBS proclaimed Last.fm to be the biggest free, ad-supported music service online–and the future of the global music business.
New MTVN Exec To Generate Dollars In Digital Platforms - MTV Networks is placing an increased emphasis on generating sponsorship dollars linked with its new virtual worlds and video games. To underscore its commitment, the company has hired an executive charged with building those revenues.
Google Sites Offers Collaboration Tools for Web Docs - Google on Wednesday said it was moving into new Microsoft territory, launching a new Web-based software program that offers Web site collaboration tools called Google Sites, which will compete with Microsoft’s SharePoint software. Sites will become part of Google’s applications suite, which includes email, word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software, and a daily calendar. Like these other products, Sites will be free and requires no installation, maintenance or upgrades.
Microsoft Unveils Windows Server 2008 - The latest version of Microsoft’s Windows Server operating system, released Wednesday, incorporates features that launch Microsoft into the virtualization market, territory belonging to market leader VMware. Virtualization is one of the fastest-growing segments of the software industry because it breaks up the traditional computer of one piece of operating software per machine. With virtualization, one computer can run several operating systems, allowing one machine to conduct two to three times as many operations as a machine running one OS.
The Quadrant Goes Collective: Newspaper Ad Alliance Picks Sides - We hear that NYC-based online ad network Collective Media has won a bid to power quadrantONE, the online newspaper advertising alliance backed by The Tribune Company, Gannett (NYSE: GCI), Hearst and the New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) that was unveiled last week. Calls to quadrantONE and Collective were not immediately returned. Collective has been around for about three years and received its first funding last October.
Microsoft Slapped With Record EC Fine For ‘Unreasonable’ Patent Charges - The European Commission has fined Microsoft 899 million euros ($1.3 billion; £680.9million) (its biggest ever antitrust penalty) for failing to to comply with a 2004 ruling it must hand server information to competitors. In March that year, MS was deemed to have extended its Windows PC monopoly in to the workgroup server market by withholding information that would let rival vendors offer product integration. Today’s fine came because, until October 2007, Microsoft had still been charging unreasonable amounts for access to that information, the EC said.
Aegis Lays Out Integration Models, Expands Creative Services - Aegis Group’s integration of traditional media services network Carat with interactive advertising unit Carat Fusion in the U.S. is the first in a series of bold experiments the holding company is trying in major markets around the world to find what forms of integration work best when combining, media, digital, and creative services brands. Creative services have become a key part of the mix being offered by London-based Aegis, which is known as a holding company for media and research operations, but which has quietly begun offering award-winning creative as part of an increasingly full-service offering, said Mainardo de Nardis, CEO of Aegis Media Global.
Classmates.com’s Growth Spurt Has Legs, Says CEO - Despite pulling its planned initial public offering in December, Classmates.com is anything but a social networking has-been, according to Mark Goldston, chairman and CEO of parent United Online. Classmates signed up one million new paid subscribers in 2007, equal to three years worth of previous paid membership growth.
CareerBuilder Launches PrimeCB.com, Job Search Site For Retirees - PrimeCB.com features the same functionality of the main CareerBuilder job search engine, including part-time, full-time and contract positions searchable by keyword, location, skills and job type. The difference is that jobs listed will come from employers with a demonstrated interest in hiring retirees and other experienced workers.
Blinkx To Announce Partnerships With BBC, CBS And TWC - Video search engine BLinkx is expected to announce content partnerships with the BBC, CBS and The Weather Channel. Blinkx presently serves over 50 million unique visitors every month–and boasts more than 220 partners and 18 million hours of indexed video and audio content, including TV moments, news clips, short documentaries, music videos, and video blogs. Blinkx uses speech recognition technology to deliver results in place of metadata-based keyword searches.
Nymag.com Named Magazine Web Site Of The Year By MPA - nymag.com the website of New York magazine, was named Magazine Website of the Year in the Service/Lifestyle category by Magazine Publishers of America (MPA), for the second year in a row. Nymag.com’s Daily Intelligencer was named Magazine Blog of the Year. Winners were announced at the Magazines 24/7 Digital Conference this week in New York City. Nymag.com attracts over four million unique users each month, generating more than 40 million page views (Source: Omniture SiteCatalyst). The site is a full-fledged online magazine in its own right, publishing between 40 and 50 original stories each day.
Disney takes big plunge into online video - Walt Disney Co. has returned to its short-form roots with the debut of a digital studio that will develop original content for the Internet. Stage 9 Digital Media, quietly in the works for two years, will be unveiled today with the premiere of “Squeegees,” a comedy series about window-washer slackers, on ABC.com and YouTube. It is the first of a planned 20 online programs currently in development.
