archives

o Inside.com: Entertainment Site Z.com Selling Assets, Will Shut Down
o Quokka Sports Lays Off 59% of Staff, Will Take $1 Million Charge
o TeleCruz Interactive Televisions to Offer Earthlink Services
o Teen Entertainment Portal Bolt.com Acquires Messaging Provider Fonepark
o Online Event Listing Site Yack to Focus on Syndication, Licensing
o MP3.com, SwapIt to Exchange Used CDs and Games for Store Credit
o Net4Music to Offer Students Interactive Online Lessons
o Briefly Noted: Creative NOMAD Jukebox - HP Pavilion, 91 Million Song
Downloads, Microsoft Windows XP - Secure Audio Path, LaMusica.com
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> Digital Media Wire Panel: "Interactive Gaming on the Internet"

Interactive gaming is a $6.5 billion market with sales rivaling those of
the motion picture box offices. Forrester Research forecasts that
interactive gaming will be a $26 billion market by 2005. Which
technologies and business models will drive this expanding market? Will
entertainment companies profit from gaming on the Internet? Digital Media
Wire will hold a dinner and panel discussion: "Interactive Gaming on the
Internet: Recent Developments and New Opportunities" on Thursday, February
15, 2001 at the Argyle Hotel in Los Angeles. Moderator: Victor Hwang, COO,
larta. Confirmed panelists: Jim Charne, Attorney and former President,
Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences; Brian Dearth, CEO, Hollywood
Stock Exchange; Tracy Fullerton, President, Spiderdance; Chris Kantrowitz,
CEO, The Groove Alliance; Mark Kapczynski, Principal Consultant, Microsoft
Media & Entertainment Group.

For more information and to register:
http://www.digitalmediawire.com/panel1.html
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> Job Postings: Dir./Mgr. of Public Relations, Biz Dev/Sales, Project
Mgr./E-Commerce

> Events: "2001 Wharton Technology & Media Conference"

Full Job/Event descriptions listed below "Briefly Noted" section or at
http://www.digitalmediawire.com/postings.html

To Post a Job: http://www.digitalmediawire.com/jobs.html
To Post an Event: http://www.digitalmediawire.com/events.html
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o Inside.com: Entertainment Site Z.com Selling Assets, Will Shut Down

Burbank, Calif. -- Entertainment site Z.com, an Idealab-backed venture
whose partners included producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Maverick Records'
co-CEO Guy Oseary and veteran TV producers Bernie Brillstein and Brad
Grey's Basic Entertainment, will shut down within weeks, according to a
report from Inside.com. The news comes a week after animation site
Icebox.com announced that it too could no longer afford to offer visual
entertainment on the Web. Burbank-based Z.com laid off about half of its
employees in October. "Z.com is selling our assets and we're going to
cease to operate our site in the next couple of weeks," CEO Joe DiNunzio
told Inside. The company is selling its Web-bases series, such as "Dare
for Dollars" and "Prom Queens." "[We are] trying to get the most possible
cash we can to settle with our creditors and shareholders," said DiNunzio,
who also stated that the company will not have to declare bankruptcy.
Seven employees will remain to wind down operations before the site is
eliminated.
http://www.inside.com/jcs/Story?article_id=23386&pod_id=10
http://www.z.com
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o Quokka Sports Lays Off 59% of Staff, Will Take $1 Million Charge

San Francisco -- Quokka Sports, a network of sports-event sites that
includes golf.com and FinalFour.net, announced on Tuesday that it will lay
off 59 percent of its staff, or 217 employees. Quokka expects the
restructuring to reduce its cash burn rate by over 65 percent, to less
than $2 million per month. As part of its restructuring plan, the company
will take a charge of $1 million in the first quarter of 2001 to cover
severance packages for laid off employees. It will also begin asking media
companies and corporations to pay for its live sporting events coverage on
a fee for service basis. "We are moving quickly to implement our new
structure, and we are confident we are building a foundation that will
allow us to manage our business successfully while conserving our cash
reserves," said Alvaro Saralegui, CEO of Quokka Sports. The company raised
$76 million in a private placement of its stock in September 2000;
however, the company has traded below $1 on the Nasdaq since November and
is in danger of being delisted. San Francisco-based Quokka Sports produced
the NBCOlympics.com site, as well as sites for the NCAA Men's and Women's
Division I Basketball Championships.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/010212/ca_quokka_.html
http://www.quokka.com
http://www.finalfour.net
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o TeleCruz Interactive Televisions to Offer Earthlink Services

San Jose, Calif. -- TeleCruz, a developer of televisions with built-in
interactive capabilities, announced on Tuesday that it has partnered with
Earthlink's Internet service. The service will be offered to owners of
TeleCruz television sets made by Panasonic. The first TeleCruz-Panasonic
sets to offer Earthlink services like email, chat, browsing and shopping
will be available to consumers in the second half of 2001. San Jose-based
TeleCruz has developed an interactive television platform that does not
require a computer or set-top box, but instead uses a modem, chip-set and
software that can be embedded into both digital and analog televisions.
Atlanta-based Earthlink will benefit from the partnership because anyone
who purchases a TeleCruz set made by Panasonic becomes an automatic paying
Earthlink subscriber. Unlike Microsoft's WebTV, existing Earthlink users
will only need to pay monthly fees on one account. TeleCruz announced a
similar partnership with Zenith at the Consumer Electronics Show;
purchasers of a TeleCruz-Zenith set are offered ISP services from Palo
Alto-based Transcast.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/010213/ca_telecru.html
http://www.telecruz.com
http://www.earthlink.net
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o Teen Entertainment Portal Bolt.com Acquires Messaging Provider Fonepark

New York -- Bolt.com, an entertainment portal targeted at teens, announced
that it has acquired Fonepark, a U.K.-based provider of wireless, two-way
text messaging software. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Fonepark CEO Mark Anderson will head development of wireless applications
for New York-based Bolt.com, which offers online entertainment and
information to its community of users, and conducts surveys that become
the basis of market research. The combined company plans to offer two-way
messaging capabilities to its users in the future.
http://www.bolt.com
http://www.fonepark.com
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o Online Event Listing Site Yack to Focus on Syndication, Licensing

New York -- Yack, a provider of an online listing of live and on-demand
streaming media and chat events, announced on Tuesday that it will focus
its efforts on syndicating and licensing its daily-updated listings to
third parties. The company said it will maintain its Yack.com consumer
site, but will combine its advertising sales, marketing and business
development departments, and add staff with syndication sales experience.
New York-based Yack hopes to generate revenue from licensing and
syndication fees, as well as ad sales and partnership fees. "With this new
direction, we've opened our doors to multiple revenue streams," said Yack
CEO Jeff Morris. "Yack will provide a wide range of much-needed services,
while giving our advertisers and partners more exposure than ever." In
addition to online outlets, Yack's online event listings are currently
syndicated to a number of newspapers and magazines.
http://www.yackinc.com/about/press_43.html
http://www.yack.com
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o MP3.com, SwapIt to Exchange Used CDs and Games for Store Credit

Maynard, Mass. -- Consumer product-exchange marketplace SwapIt announced a
partnership with MP3.com on Tuesday, which will allow users to send their
used CDs and video games to MP3.com in exchange for credit to purchase
other used media. The CD Swapper service will be marketed to MP3.com
users, and MP3.com will benefit from a flat fee -- from $2 to $5,
depending on the value of the item -- and sales tax from each transaction
that will be charged to a user's credit card. Massachusetts-based SwapIt
offers to send pre-paid mailers to users, with which they can mail in
their used media.
http://swapit.mp3.com
http://swapit.mp3.com/help/swapout_fee.asp
http://www.swapit.com
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o Net4Music to Offer Students Interactive Online Lessons

New York -- Net4Music, a provider of downloadable sheet music and
resources for music educators, announced its plans on Tuesday to develop a
subscription-based online music education service. The service will
include software that can listen to a music student's playing and compare
it to versions by professionals such as jazz trumpet player Wynton
Marsalis. The SmartMusic software will soon be offered on the New
York-based company's website. The first phase of the program will allow
users to hear a selection of sheet music, change the key or solo
instrument, and print one copy of the resulting sheet music. Later this
year, software that can listen as a music student sings or plays through a
microphone connected to a PC and follow spontaneous tempo changes will be
released. Future versions of the product will listen to a music student's
performance, compare it to a "perfect" performance, and then help the
music student understand how to improve their performance. Net4Music's
SmartMusic software has been demonstrated by noted musicians including
Wynton Marsalis and Irish flutist James Gallway.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/010213/ny_net4mus.html
http://www.net4music.com
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o Briefly Noted:

(Milpitas, Calif.) Creative, a developer and manufacturer of MP3 players,
announced on Tuesday that its NOMAD Jukebox -- a portable music player
with a 6GB hard drive that can hold up to 100 hours of music -- will be
offered as a built-in option along with Pavilion PCs manufactured by
Hewlett-Packard. Additionally, consumers can add Milpitas-based Creative's
NOMAD II, a smaller player with 64MB of flash memory, to their computer
orders. Hewlett-Packard also lists Diamond's Rio MP3 player in a product
bundle on its site.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/010213/ca_creativ.html
http://www.creative.com
http://www.hp-at-home.com/hpPavilionHome/productHome.cfm

(Cambridge, Mass.) Media analyst firm and online news site Webnoize said
on Tuesday that it estimates 91 million songs were downloaded through
Napster on Monday, in the wake of a Ninth Circuit Court ruling that may
effectively shut down the file-sharing service. The company also reports
that an estimated 130 million songs were traded on Sunday, the eve of the
ruling. "The Napster user base continues to grow, and any further legal
developments will trigger a downloading frenzy even larger than seen last
weekend," said Matt Bailey, who led the Webnoize study.
http://www.webnoize.com

(San Francisco) Microsoft will include software in its upcoming Windows XP
operating system that can add noise and static to digital music,
essentially preventing unauthorized transfers, Wired News reported on
Tuesday. The Secure Audio Path (SAP) system will add the extra noise to
media files, and won't allow their transfer anywhere except to the Windows
Media Player. The article states that SAP is a bid by Microsoft to
dominate the market for digital rights management, but can only work if
acceptance and use of the company's media player becomes widespread.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,41614,00.html
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/psdk/wm_media/wmrm/htm/understandingthesecureaudiopathmodel.htm

(Portland, Ore.) Internet measurement firm MeasureCast released figures on
Tuesday indicating that Spanish-language music was second only to talk
radio as the most popular format for streaming audio, during the week of
February 5 - 11. LaMusica.com was the third most-popular station measured,
following two talk radio streams and beating out stations with both Top 40
and classic rock formats.
http://www.measurecast.com/news/pr/2001/pr20010213.html
http://www.lamusica.com

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Job Postings:
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To Post Jobs: http://www.digitalmediawire.com/jobs.html

> Load Media Network, Director/Manager of Public Relations - Los Angeles

Develop and execute Load Media's PR strategy. Manage relationship
with external PR agency. Implement standard public relations and
communications practices including but not limited to: media tours, events
and trade shows, desk side briefings, media pitching, press release
development, approvals and distribution, and message documents. 4-8 years
marketing/advertising experience. Send resumes to danderson@loadmedia.com
http://www.loadmedia.com
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> everse, Business Development / Sales - Los Angeles

Internet professional services firm seeks star sales person to
identify and drive strategic business to closure. Assist clients in
defining business objectives, goals and budgets. Position requires
establishing and maintaining long-term relationships with client base.
Bachelor's degree, MBA preferred. History of closing web service business
or agency-related. Ability to generate leads through cold-calling. Send
resumes to stevey@everse.com
http://www.everse.com
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> RichFX, Project Manager / E-commerce - New York City

Change the face of on-line shopping by helping to create the world's
first ONE PAGE storefront. This is an opportunity to work on truly
breakthrough, cutting-edge technology. Very competitive salary and equity
in a well-funded mature startup. Professional, but business casual
environment. Comprehensive benefits package.
Send resumes to nyrecruiter@richfx.com
http://www.richfx.com

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Event Postings:
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To Post Events: http://www.digitalmediawire.com/events.html

> 2001 Wharton Technology & Media Conference, Feb. 15-17 - Philadelphia

"Managing in a Converging World" -- Featured Keynote Speakers: George
Conrages, CEO, Akamai Technologies; Joseph P. Nacchio, Chairman and
CEO,Qwest Communications International; Ellen Hancock, Chairman and
CEO, Exodus Communications. Panelists include Hank Barry, Napster,
and Jonathan Sacks, AOL Service. For more info:
soyoung2@wharton.upenn.edu
http://www.whartontechmedia.com
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