OnHollywood Feed

lonelygirl15 Team to Build Digital Studio

Andy Plesser — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:35:00 -0700

"We're going to teach Hollywood how to do it right"

LOS ANGELES -- The co-producers of lonelygirl15, Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried, have raised $5 million in venture funding, moved into their new offices, just got their computers this week and are hiring. The funding was announced last month.

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Giant Realm Lands $2M from Softbank

AO — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:37:00 -0700

Male entertainment portal Giant Realm today announced a $2 million investment from Softbank Capital, bringing their series A total to $5.5 million.

Softbank joins existing investors Comcast Interactive Capital, Edison Venture Fund and William Morris Agency.

Giant Realm targets men "from puberty to marriage," CEO James Green told AO's Matt Bowman. Its communities focus on video games, movies, TV and music.
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Studios Beat Down TorrentSpy

CNET — Wed, 07 May 2008 21:53:00 -0700

The MPAA has won a battle in its ongoing war to close the piracy flood gates. An LA Judge ordered TorrentSpy to pay $30,000 per infringement for 3,699 films and shows.

From CNET:

In a major win for Hollywood studios, a California federal judge has ordered TorrentSpy to pay some $110 million in damages for infringing the copyright of thousands of films and TV shows through its BitTorrent search engine.

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Ambushing Ed Harris

Hooman_Khalili — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:54:00 -0700

Shrinking production costs are creating huge opportunities for startup studios. That's a good thing for young directors with inspiring stories--and the guts to ambush a Hollywood superstar.

Three months after their homeless father died in jail, twin brothers Logan and Noah Miller cornered 4-time Oscar nominee Ed Harris in an alley outside the Castro Theatre and pitched him on their autobiographical[...]

Sprint, Clearwire: Boost to Google, Cable's Wireless Ambitions

Michael Stroud — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:15:00 -0700

Sprint Nextel and Clearwire's reported $12 billion joint venture to roll out ultra-fast wireless Internet access would be a significant boost to the cellular aspirations of Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Google.

The Wall Street Journal said the two companies have raised $3.2 billion in outside financing, including $1.05 billion from Comcast, $550 million from Time Warner Cable, $500 million from Internet giant Google and $1 billion from Intel.

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Server Theft Leaves Peter Gabriel Webless

AO — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:27:00 -0700

Who in the would do this to the coolest musical man on the web? Peter Gabriel, who has fought to forge new music models that work for artists and consumers, has had his music empire raided.

From the Register:

Server theft knocks Peter Gabriel off the web

Raid on ISP's data centre

By Drew Cullen → More by this author
Published Monday 5th May 2008 16:35 GMT

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New Set-Top Brings HD Internet to TV

AO — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:00:00 -0700

Amazon is offering a new set top box that turns the internet into a channel on your HDTV. The difference with the “ZvBox” is that you can rout the internet to any HDTV in your home with one box.

From the press release:

ZeeVee Launches ZvBox, New Consumer Electronics Product for Broadcasting Any Internet TV or Computer Content to All HDTVs in Your Home

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Mary Meeker's State of the Net

AO — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:36:00 -0700

Mary Meeker's overview of the internet economy from the Web 2.0 summit is up. The big coming trends were online advertising growth (of course), local momentum and video monetization.

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Delray Beach Film Fest, Global Sound Conference, Pangea Day, Cannes Film Festival, Drama Desk Awards, Durango Songwriters Expo

paulmitchell29 — Mon, 05 May 2008 12:57:00 -0700

Digital Hollywood Spring '08 celebrates new talent in the "New Social Digital Media Landscape," when it meets May 5-8 in Hollywood, holding events like the VIP opening day dinner hosted by Tim Chang, featuring Damon Wayans, Tyrese Gibson, and Chuck D, and a poolside reception hosted by Microsoft Media Center. A new award takes shape as Deutsche Telekom and fmx 08 join forces to honor[...]

The New Music Mavens

CNET — Mon, 05 May 2008 11:06:00 -0700

Music bloggers are growing in value. As the doorways to discovery, sites like Stereogum and BrooklynVegan are making music the first non-techie industry to fully harness new media tools.

From CNet:

Technology may have made it simple to obtain digital music, but it hasn't provided an easy way to sift through millions of tracks to find the tunes we like.

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Fantasy Football Comes to Facebook

WSJ — Mon, 05 May 2008 11:04:00 -0700

Sports Illustrated will launch a fantasy-football game on the Facebook. Given the ridiculous popularity and hyper-interactivity of both, this should be a big winner.

From WSJ:

Sports Illustrated to Take Fantasy Game to Facebook

Sports Illustrated Group has reached an agreement with Citizen Sports Inc. to develop and promote sports-related Web content, including a fantasy-football game that will be played on the Facebook Inc. Web site.

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Win an Online Contest, Make a Film

Michael Stroud — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:49:00 -0700

Nuru Rimington-Mkalif is a 21-year-old, unknown, London-based filmmaker who suddenly finds himself represented by William Morris Agency and positioned to make a Hollywood feature film -- because of an online contest.

Filmaka.com, the online studio created by former Fox TV chief Sandy Grushow and "Bend It Like Beckham Producer" Deepak Nayar, selected Rimington-Mkalif from among hundreds of online contestants.

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iTunes, Hollywood Strike New Deal

WSJ — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:42:00 -0700

The big movie studios have agreed to let iTunes offer movie downloads the same day they're released on DVDs. Hollywood is getting sucked further North.

Major movie studios have agreed to allow Apple Inc.'s iTunes to sell movies on the same day they are released on DVD, another sign of Hollywood's acceptance of business models that encroach on traditional DVD-sales markets.

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AT&T to Offer TV on Cell Phones

WSJ — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:29:00 -0700

It's hard to see the value in this one--since Tivo unshackled the consumer from network schedules, ondemand programming has taken off. Why would mobile users care to chain themselves up again?

From WSJ:

AT&T Inc. plans to launch a television service for cellphones next week, following in the footsteps of rival Verizon Wireless, even as skeptics question whether there is consumer demand for such mobile broadcast-style programming.

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Newspaper Economics: Making a Virtue of Necessity

Michael Stroud — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:52:00 -0700

Former Wall Street Journal Publisher Gordon Crovitz phrased the problem facing newspapers succinctly: "Print revenue has declined much faster than online can be built up," he told the audience at the Milken Global Conference.

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