archives

o Citing Redundancies, Quokka Sports Lays Off 20% Of Staff
o CMGI Closes Down Entertainment Site iCast
o Echo Networks Licenses Warner Music For Digital Locker Service
o WSJ, LA Times Report On Studio Plans For High-Speed Movies On Demand
o OpenTV To Deploy Interactive Television Service In Northern California
> Digital Media Wire Networking Events: Washington, D.C., Los Angeles
o Briefly Noted: EMusic.com - Fantasy Records, "Whoring for Downloads,"
Microsoft - Two Way TV, ImageDirect.com, Scientific Atlanta - Kodak
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o Citing Redundancies, Quokka Sports Lays Off 20% Of Staff

San Francisco -- Sports entertainment site Quokka Sports has announced
that it will lay off 90 of its 460 employees, or about 20 percent of its
total workforce, citing redundancies resulting from its acquisition of the
Total Sports online sports site. "With our recent acquisition of Total
Sports, we will now realize the full leverage of the synergies of our
organization, especially the production efficiencies that our combined
technology platforms produce," Quokka CEO Alvaro Saralegui said in a
statement. San Francisco-based Quokka Sports proves coverage of sailing,
action sports, golf, motorsports and the Olympics. Its recent acquisition
of Total Sports added football, basketball, soccer and other sports to its
coverage. The company said it will take a one-time charge of $1.8 to 2.0
million in the fourth quarter of 2000 to account for costs associated with
the layoffs. Quokka raised $77 million in September from investors that
included GE Capital and DirecTV.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001129/ca_quokka_.html
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-3923242.html
http://www.quokka.com
http://www.totalsports.net
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o CMGI Closes Down Entertainment Site iCast

Woburn, Mass. -- Several weeks after Internet company incubator CMGI said
it would "wind down" entertainment site iCast's operations, on Thursday
the company closed down. A note on the company's website reads: "Sorry you
missed us! iCAST Corporation has closed down its Website and is in the
process of winding down the business." The note is attributed to iCast CEO
Margaret Heffernan. CNET reported that the company would shut down
following the conclusion its webcast of magician David Blaine's removal
from being immersed in a block of ice in New York City Wednesday night.
CMGI announced two weeks ago that it would shut down iCast in an effort to
increase its profitability.
http://www.icast.com
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-3921221.html
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o Echo Networks Licenses Warner Music For Digital Locker Service

San Francisco -- Echo Networks, a community-based streaming music service,
announced on Thursday that it has licensed Warner Music Group's catalog
for use with its digital locker service. The service allows users to
listen to music they have purchased through PCs and other Internet-enabled
devices. As part of the deal, Warner Music will receive a "small equity
stake" in San Francisco-based Echo Networks. Neither company would comment
on the amount of equity taken. The service, currently in beta testing and
scheduled to launch in early 2001, streams songs to communities of users
based on song ratings determined by the users of each group. Users can add
songs from CDs they have purchased to their digital locker, similar to
MP3.com's My.MP3.com service, and then share these songs with other users
in their community through the ratings-based community streaming station.
Unlike Napster, where every user's music is shared with the community,
Echo Networks' users must develop their own communities of family and
friends by inviting them to join their particular community within the
service.
http://www.echo.com/pressroom_release_113000_1.jsp
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o WSJ, LA Times Report On Studio Plans For High-Speed Movies On Demand

New York -- Both The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times
featured articles Thursday regarding the major film studios' plans to
deliver films to PCs and TVs in users' homes over high-speed Internet
connections. The Wall Street Journal said that both Sony and Disney are
currently developing video on demand services; Sony is in talks with
Warner Bros. and MGM, while Disney has a tentative agreement with 20th
Century Fox and is holding discussions with both MGM and Paramount
Pictures, according to the article. Enron Corp. and Blockbuster Inc. have
already announced plans to develop a video on demand service for
high-speed connections. "People want to see movies on the Internet, and
we, along with other studios, plan to give them a chance to do that," Yair
Landau, president of Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment told The Journal.
The Los Angeles times reported that while Sony will offer a service
allowing users to download movies to their computers for a personal
library, Disney is exploring a streaming service for one-time viewing.
"There are already multiple pirate sites, so the studios have about 18
months to deal with the alleged illegals … before they lose control of the
marketplace," Frank Biondi, senior managing director of Waterview
Advisors, told The Times. However, a video on demand service offered by
cable operators is a more viable model, because consumers will more likely
want to watch movies on their televisions, rather than their computers.
http://www.latimes.com/business/20001130/t000114997.html
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o OpenTV To Deploy Interactive Television Service In Northern California

Mountain View, Calif. -- OpenTV, a developer of software for interactive
television, announced on Thursday that it will deploy its advanced
interactive television system on USA Media Group's Northern California
cable system in the first quarter of 2001. The system will run on set-top
boxes designed by Motorola that are already installed in the homes of USA
Media subscribers. Features of the interactive television service will
include on-demand news, weather, sports, entertainment and information.
"For the first time, U.S. cable operators can move beyond trials or lab
testing and peer into the inner-workings of a fully-deployed U.S.
interactive television service," said OpenTV president James Ackerman.
Mountain View-based OpenTV has already deployed its services on 11 million
set-tops in European countries.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/001130/ca_opentv.html
http://www.opentv.com
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> Digital Media Wire Networking Events: Washington, D.C., Los Angeles

Washington, D.C. -- Digital Media Wire will host its next networking event
on Wednesday, December 6 in Washington, D.C. for subscribers and those
interested in the convergence of entertainment, technology and the
Internet. Light hors d'oeuvres will be served and there will be a cash
bar.

Date: Wednesday, December 6, 2000
Time: 6:30 - 8:30
Location: Clyde's of Tyson's Corner
8332 Leesburg Pike - Vienna, VA

There is no charge for the event, but attendees must register at the link
below.
http://www.digitalmediawire.com/washington.htm

Los Angeles -- Digital Media Wire will host a networking event on
Wednesday, December 13 in Los Angeles for subscribers and those interested
in the convergence of entertainment, technology and the Internet. Light
hors d'oeuvres will be served and there will be a cash bar. There is no
charge for the event and registration is not necessary.

Date: Wednesday, December 13, 2000
Time: 6:30 - 9:30
Location: The Sunset Trocadero Lounge
8280 Sunset Boulevard - West Hollywood, CA

For additional details: http://www.digitalmediawire.com/dmw_event1.html
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o Briefly Noted:

(Redwood City, Calif.) EMusic.com, a paid downloadable music service,
announced on Thursday that it has signed an agreement to distribute music
from Fantasy Records. The agreement will add 35,000 tracks from labels
including Stax, Milestone, Prestige, Riverside, Kicking Mule, Pablo,
Specialty and Takoma to the EMusic.com catalog. Artists on these labels
include jazz legends Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley
and Ornette Coleman, as well as spoken-word works from poet Allen Ginsberg
and comedian Lenny Bruce.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001130/ca_emusic_.html
http://www.emusic.com

(San Francisco) Online magazine Salon.com ran a feature article on
Thursday entitled "Whoring for Downloads," chronicling the measures being
taken by some artists to profit from their music postings on MP3.com's
"Payback for Playback" program. MP3.com sets aside $1 million a month with
which to pay artists who have generated the greatest number of downloads.
The article describes the phenomena of using "adult-themed" songs,
cooperative download programs among artists, and band-name "copycats" to
generate interest in songs, and in turn revenue for the groups posting the
songs. For instance, one group offering downloads on the site calls itself
"Backstreet 98 Boys Degrees."
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/11/30/download_trading/index.html
http://www.mp3.com/payback/terms.html

(Los Angeles) Microsoft announced that it has signed a letter of intent to
form a strategic alliance with Two Way TV, a developer of games for
interactive television. There are no official ties between the companies
yet, but Microsoft said that a partnership would aim to develop games for
its Microsoft TV platform. London-based Two Way TV has developed
interactive games for British game shows such as "Mastermind" and "The
Crystal Maze." The company announced on Tuesday that it received $7
million in funding from Liberate Technologies, a Microsoft rival developer
of interactive television software.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001129/ca_msft_tw.html
http://www.twowaytv.com

(New York) ImageDirect, an online syndicator of celebrity photos for
online and traditional media, announced on Thursday the launch of its
service. Media organizations can subscribe to the service, and gain access
to a pool of photographers' photographs from events in the fashion, music
and entertainment industries. The high-quality pictures can be licensed
from the website in a format ready for publication. New York-based
ImageDirect is a division of JumpCut, which also provides multimedia
production and development, as well as live event programming,
broadcasting and syndication.
http://www.imagedirect.com

(Atlanta) Set-top box manufacturer Scientific Atlanta announced on
Thursday that it has finalized an agreement with Kodak to develop a
digital picture-sharing service for interactive television. The service
will allow consumers with Scientific Atlanta set-tops to load digital
pictures onto the device and share them over the Internet, as well as
order photographic prints of the images. Trials of the new service are
expected to begin in the first quarter of next year.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001129/ga_scienti_4.html
http://www.scientificatlanta.com
http://www.kodak.com
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