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DIGITAL MEDIA WIRE -- August 11, 2000
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o Thomson Acquires Streaming Search Company Singingfish.com
o Mexico's Televisa Entertainment Portal Cutting Staff
o Fake Star Wars Trailer Receives 1 Million Downloads
o Briefly Noted: Adobefacts.com, Pierce Ledbetter – MusicBank,
IFilm – Charles Fleming – Chris Gore, Sky Global Networks,
Fantasy Losers League, HitMusicRadio.com, Jump.net, Transnet Services,
Elvis Vigil
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o Thomson Acquires Streaming Search Company Singingfish.com
Seattle – As part of its new digital media initiative, Thomson Multimedia,
a French-based electronics manufacturer, announced today that it has
agreed to acquire Singingfish.com, a developer of streaming media search
services. Terms of the cash deal were not disclosed. Seattle-based
Singingfish.com specializes in categorizing and indexing streaming media
files. Thomson officials said the acquisition is part of its move into
streaming media and online entertainment services. It recently created a
new business unit, called Digital Media Solutions, to oversee these
initiatives.
http://www.singingfish.com/release8_9.html
http://www.thomson-multimedia.com
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o Mexico's Televisa Entertainment Portal Cutting Staff
Mexcio City – A leading financial newspaper in Mexico reported today that
Mexican media company Televisa plans to lay off a significant number of
employees from its Esmas.com Spanish entertainment portal that launched a
few months ago. As the dominant television network in Mexico, Televisa had
hoped to rapidly grow on the Internet. However, with Internet penetration
in Mexico growing at a slower rate than predicted and expenses rising,
Televisa has reportedly decided to scale back its Internet operations.
Press reports on the number of lay offs range from 100 to 300. "Whenever
you hear of marketing cutbacks or staff cutbacks ... I always interpret
that as the first telltale sign that the business plan is dissolving,"
Chris Recouso, an analyst covering Televisa for Bear Stearns, said in a
Reuters article.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/000811/n11398938.html
http://www.esmas.com/
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o Fake Star Wars Trailer Receives 1 Million Downloads
Los Angeles, Calif. – Reflecting the power of viral marketing in the
digital media environment, TheForce.net, a web site for Star Wars fans,
said today that a fake movie trailer developed by a fan for the upcoming
"Star Wars: Episode II" has received over one million downloads.
Originally, the two-minute fake trailer, which is a professional-looking
montage edited to look like actual Star Wars scenes, had Leonardo DiCaprio
as the lead actor. Scenes from other movies were spliced into the
trailers. (It was later edited to show Hayden Christensen, a Canadian
actor who was chosen by LucasFilm for the part.) Production on "Star Wars:
Episode II" has just begun in Australia. The trailer has caused little
resistance from LucasFilm, which said it is helping build buzz for the new
movie. "People keep asking us about the controversy . . . there is no
controversy," Jeanne Cole, a spokeswoman for LucasFilm, told CNN.
http://www.theforce.net/
http://www.cnn.com/2000TECH/computing/08/11/fake.starwars/index.html
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o Briefly Noted:
(San Jose, Calif.) Adobe, which filed a lawsuit against Macromedia
yesterday for patent infringement, has developed a web site to support its
case. The site, called adobefacts.com, provides examples of the alleged
patent infringement along with court records.
http://www.adobefacts.com/
(New York) TheStreet.com reported on Friday that Pierce Ledbetter, the
co-founder of MusicBank, an online music service with $20 million in
venture capital funding, has successfully avoided a minefield of potential
legal battles with record companies. "As far as the big recording
companies are concerned, Ledbetter has opted for cooperation instead of
confrontation," the article said. "Rather than simply taking the online
renegades to court, the recording industry is beginning to make its own
efforts at offering secure music over the Internet -- meaning impossible
to store and distribute to users that don't first buy the compact disc --
and at the same time getting paid through licensing fees. The
beneficiaries appear to be upstart companies like MusicBank."
http://www.thestreet.com/brknews/media/1036304.html
(Hollywood.) IFILM, a web site for film fans, has hired entertainment
journalists Charles Fleming and Chris Gore to write weekly columns for the
site. Fleming has worked as a staff writer and columnist for Newsweek,
Variety, LA Weekly and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. Gore is the
founder of "Film Threat" magazine.
http://www.IFILM.com
http://www.filmthreat.com
(New York) Reuters reported today that Rupert Murdoch's ambitious plan to
cover the world with his satellite TV network has Wall Street "salivating
at what could be the biggest media company public offering ever." The
proposed Sky Global Network spinoff is expected to occur in the fourth
quarter of the year.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/000811/n11398938.html
(Los Angeles) J2 Communications, the owner of the comedy website
nationallampoon.com, today announced that "Fantasy Losers League," a
segment on its site, will soon become its own web site. The new site,
called fantasylosersleague.com, will launch in the fall. "Fantasy Losers
League invites participants to draft teams made up of professional
athletes from any sport," the company said. "The catch? Athletes are rated
not on their ability to hit home runs, toss 60-yard passes or ‘drain
threes,’ but on their misbehavior on and off the field."
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/000810/ca_nationa.html
http://www.filmthreat.com/
(Boca Raton, Fl.) Florida-based The BroadcastWeb Network has launched its
fifth Internet radio station called HitMusicRadio.com.
http://www.hitmusicradio.com
(Austin, Tex.) Jump.net, an Austin-based web hosting and broadband
provider, today announced that its investment division, Jump.net Ventures,
has purchased a minority stake in five Texas-based startup companies. The
startups include Web Broadcast Corporation, ExploreIt!, MD Mate,
Watchzone, and Zisto.com.
http://www.jump.net
http://www.jumpnetventures.com
(Santa Ana, Calif.) Transnet Services today announced that it has signed
a multi-casino licensing agreement with World Gaming Corporation. Under
the terms of the deal, Transnet will develop four online casinos for World
Gaming Corporation. The casinos will operate under a gambling license from
Belize and will not be permitted to accept bets from users in the United
States.
http://www.xirtrix.com
(Memphis, Tenn) The 23rd anniversary vigil commemorating Elvis Presley’s
death will be webcast Tuesday, August 14 on the newly launched
elvis-presley.com web site. Cameras will focus on the grounds of the
Graceland Estate where as many as 50,000 people have gathered during past
anniversaries.
http://www.elvis-presley.com
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