archives

o Comcast, Cox Fund Excite@Home Operations Through Subscriber Transfers
o AT&T Withdraws $307 Million Bid for Excite@Home Assets
o MusicNet Launched On RealNetworks' RealOne Service
o Vivendi Laying Off 20% of Staff at New Online Unit
o Wireless Games Firm Airborne Entertainment Raises $4 Million
o CD Burning Software Firm Roxio Acquires MGI Software for $32.8 Million
o Opera Internet Browser Gaining Ground in Europe
o MSNBC.com Lays Off 9% of Staff
o Briefly Noted: Roxio - MusicNet?, Universal - U.S. copy-protected CD,
Technicolor Digital Cinema - "Ocean's Eleven," Verance - performing rights
orgs, BMG - Radio 538 - Golden Bytes - DMDSecure, Adtegrity - L90
_____________________________________________

> Job Postings: Staff Writer, Online Ad Sales Mgr., Web Research
Assistant, Web Designer

> Events/Services: "Third Annual Early Stage Capital Forum," "Marketing
and PR Courses Taught by Journalists," "Avail. for Hire," "Digital Media
Wire Directory," "Avail. for Hire," "Shortspan Film & Video Festival"

Full Job/Event/Services 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/Service: http://www.digitalmediawire.com/events.html
_____________________________________________

o Comcast, Cox Fund Excite@Home Operations Through Subscriber Transfers

Redwood City, Calif. -- Under the terms of new contracts negotiated
between bankrupt broadband access provider Excite@Home and two of its
cable TV operator customers, Comcast and Cox will each give Excite@Home
$160 million to keep its service running for three months while the
companies transition subscribers to their own high-speed networks.
Canada-based Rogers Communications, which also negotiated a $15 million
temporary deal with Excite@Home, said it has already transitioned 70
percent of its Excite@Home subscribers to its own network and will move
the others as soon as possible. AT&T Broadband said it will transition the
remaining 510,000 subscribers on Excite@Home's network to its own by as
early as Friday. Other partners, such as Adelphia, said that 90 percent of
its Excite@Home subscribers have been moved to its network, while
maintaining that 98 percent of its total subscriber base was unaffected by
the outage.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/011203/phm051_1.html
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/011204/to213_1.html
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/011203/phm050_1.html
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-8055607.html?tag=tp_pr
_____________________________________________

o AT&T Withdraws $307 Million Bid for Excite@Home Assets

New York -- AT&T on Tuesday terminated its agreement to purchase assets of
bankrupt broadband access provider Excite@Home for $307 million. The
company cited "a number of significant breaches and other violations of
the agreement by At Home." A number of Excite@Home's bondholders had
voiced their dissent with the AT&T offer, arguing that Excite@Home's
assets were being undervalued. The company owed the bondholders a combined
$750 million.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/011204/42090_1.html
_____________________________________________

o MusicNet Launched On RealNetworks' RealOne Service

Seattle -- RealNetworks on Tuesday launched its RealOne Service, a
combination media player and premium content subscription service that
includes the first availability of MusicNet, a digital music service
offering songs from the catalogs of record labels including Warner Music,
BMG, EMI and Zomba. MusicNet's initial 75,000-song catalog is being
offered on its own for $9.95 per month, or for $19.95 when bundled with
other RealOne content such as "CBS Survivor Insider," audio streams of NBA
games and the company's RealArcade online games service. Users can stream
100 songs on-demand per month, as well as download 100 secured songs,
which are tethered to their computers so that they cannot be burned onto
CD or downloaded to portable music players.
http://www.real.com/realone/plus/index.html?src=011204realhome_1,011204homepop_1
http://www.musicnet.com
http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,48805,00.html
_____________________________________________

o Vivendi Laying Off 20% of Staff at New Online Unit

Paris -- Vivendi Universal said on Tuesday that it will lay off 130
employees -- or 20 percent of the staff at its newly created Vivendi
Universal Net USA Group. The unit, headed by former MP3.com president
Robin Richards, oversees online entertainment offerings such as MP3.com,
GetMusic, EMusic and Flipside.com. Vivendi also announced that GetMusic
CEO Andrew Nibley is leaving the company to pursue other interests. The
layoffs at Vivendi Universal Net USA Group come as part of a restructuring
aimed at moving the unit toward profitability.
http://www.vivendiuniversalnet.com
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-8065852.html?tag=cd_mh
_____________________________________________

o Wireless Games Firm Airborne Entertainment Raises $4 Million

Montreal -- Airborne Entertainment, a provider of wireless games and other
mobile entertainment, has raised $4 million in its first round of venture
capital financing. Bell Mobility Investments and Telesystem Ltd. led the
round, which also included investments from "new strategic investors from
the entertainment industry" and previous Airborne investors.
Montreal-based Airborne Entertainment's Pocket Box Office offers games,
humor, trivia, edutainment, ringtones and downloadable graphics delivered
via WAP, one-and-two-way SMS. The company provides services to wireless
carriers including Cingular, Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, Qwest and Bell
Mobility. Airborne will use the funds to acquire content as well as to
enhance its platform to include emerging network protocols, device types
and integration with carrier billing systems.
http://www.airborneentertainment.com/release-031201.html
_____________________________________________

o CD Burning Software Firm Roxio Acquires MGI Software for $32.8 Million

Milpitas, Calif. -- Roxio, developer of the Easy CD Creator software for
burning music and other data onto recordable CDs, announced on Tuesday
that it will acquire MGI software, a provider of photo and video editing
software, in an all-stock transaction valued at $32.8 million.
Milpitas-based Roxio will also provide a line of credit of up to $1.5
million to Canada-based MGI to fund continuing operations. "This
transaction is highly synergistic from both a product portfolio and
marketing and distribution standpoint," said Roxio CEO Chris Gorog.
"Digital photography is moving into mainstream adoption and we believe
digital video is the next area of high growth." Roxio expects MGI to
contribute $25 million in revenues for 2003.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/011204/sftu080_1.html
http://www.mgisoft.com
http://www.roxio.com
_____________________________________________

o Opera Internet Browser Gaining Ground in Europe

San Diego -- Compared to the two dominant Internet browsers -- Microsoft's
Internet Explorer and Netscape's Navigator -- Norway-based Opera's browser
has a tiny share of users, but that number is growing, especially in
Europe, according to figures released Tuesday by WebSideStory's
StatMarket. Opera's global usage share as of November 2001 was 0.67
percent, a number that doubled since January 2001. Microsoft's Internet
Explorer continues to dominate with 89 percent of users, while Netscape is
currently used by 9.7 percent of users. But in Russia, Opera users make up
5.88 percent of Web surfers, up from 1.5 percent at the beginning of the
year. The browser is also gaining popularity in Germany, where 3.37
percent of users access the Internet using Opera, and in Sweden where
Opera's share is 1.8 percent. "They are proving, slowly but surely, that
they can still be a player in the browser war," said Geoff Johnston of
StatMarket. "This should keep Netscape and Microsoft on their toes."
http://www.statmarket.com/cgi-bin/sm.cgi?sm&feature&week_stat
http://www.opera.com
_____________________________________________

o MSNBC.com Lays Off 9% of Staff

Redmond, Wash. -- News site MSNBC.com has laid off 9 percent of its staff
-- or about 20 employees -- amid the declining online advertising market
and increased costs stemming from additional visitors to its site.
MSNBC.com had 13 million more visitors in September than it did in August
as users sought video and other coverage of the events of Sept. 11. An
MSNBC.com spokesperson told Newsbytes that the company's streaming video
fees alone were $1 million more than budgeted for September.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/172654.html
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-8054288.html?tag=ch_mh
_____________________________________________

o Briefly Noted:

(Milpitas, Calif.) Roxio announced on Tuesday that it will provide
CD-burning capability to RealNetworks' RealOne subscription service and
player. Although the MusicNet service launched by several major record
labels today does not allow users to burn music they download onto CD, the
partnership could provide MusicNet a means of providing this feature in
the future. Milpitas-based Roxio announced in June that it is working with
EMI -- one of the labels backing MusicNet -- on a way to allow users to
burn tracks they download from EMI, but only under the specific terms set
by copyright holders.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/011204/sftu044_1.html
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6192319.html

(Sherman Oaks, Calif.) Universal Music Group will release the first
copy-protected CD in the U.S. when it ships a second soundtrack to the
film "The Fast and the Furious" to retailers on Dec. 18, NewsFactor
reported on Tuesday. The label has told retailers that the CD may not play
on Mac computers, DVD players or video game consoles that play CDs and
DVDs. Retail music chain Tower Records' chief operating officer Stan Goman
told NewsFactor that he is not concerned with returns of copy-protected
discs. "I'll give [the customers] their money back," said Goman. "I'm
looking at the big picture, and I'm willing to sacrifice a few things to
save our industry."
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/15093.html

(Burbank, Calif.) Technicolor Digital Cinema, a joint venture between
Technicolor and Qualcomm, announced on Tuesday that Warner Bros. will use
its technology to digitally distribute its upcoming film "Ocean's Eleven"
via satellite to 19 screening sites in North America. The film is the
first to be distributed by Burbank-based Technicolor using San Diego-based
Qualcomm's video compression technology, which was specifically designed
for use in digital cinema.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/011204/42205_1.html
http://www.technicolordigital.com
http://www.qualcomm.com/press/view/0,1884,681,00.html

(San Diego) Digital watermarking technology developer Verance announced
that its technology has been certified for use by three international
performing rights organizations. The Japanese Society for Rights of
Authors Composers and Publishers (JASRAC), the International Confederation
of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) and BIEM (Bureau
International des Societes Gerant les Droits d'Enregistrement et de
Reproduction Mecanique) said that San Diego-based Verance's technology
meets their international guideline of capabilities for global use of
watermarks for tracking the use of copyrighted material on the Internet.
http://www.verance.com/verance/news/releases/12-03-01.html
http://www.jasrac.or.jp/ejhp/
http://www.cisac.org/cisac/webcontent.nsf/MainFrameEN?OpenFrameSet
http://www.biem.org/biem/bportail.nsf/FramePubAngl?OpenFrameSet 

(Hilversum, Netherlands) Major record label BMG Entertainment is offering
downloadable singles from its artists through a partnership with
Netherlands-based radio station Radio 538. Listeners will be able to
purchase tracks using their cell phones via SMS, and will receive the
encrypted track and license with the key to decrypt it delivered via
email. The license contains the usage rights to listen to the song and
transfer it to a portable music player using Windows Media Player
technology. The promotion will last through the end of the year, and will
utilize Netherlands-based Golden Bytes' SMS delivery technology and
digital rights management developed by Amsterdam-based DMDSecure.
http://www.radio538.nl
http://www.golden-bytes.com
http://www.dmdsecure.com

(Grand Rapids, Mich.) Michigan-based Adtegrity, a provider of online
advertising services, said on Tuesday that it has reached an agreement
with online ad firm L90 to let the company sell ads on its network of 200
websites. Los Angeles-based L90 claims to serve over 2,000 clients with
its online marketing services.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/011204/detu014_1.html
http://www.adtegrity.com
http://www.l90.com

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

> Staff Writer - Forbes.com - NYC

Forbes.com, the online component of Forbes Magazine, seeks a junior
reporter who has experience covering the business world, and can handle
the daily deadline grind, turning out punchy, opinionated copy on a wide
range of business and financial subjects. Experience on a daily newspaper,
wire service or Web site is a plus, as is experience covering financial
services.
Send cover letter/resume/salary history to Michael Noer: mnoer@forbes.net
______________________

> Internet Advertising Sales Manager, gantthead.com, Fairfax VA

Are you passionate about the Internet as a B2B advertising medium? We have
too many leads to pursue and need you if: you have 2+ yrs exp. selling
Internet advertising (required); BA/S degree; B2B agency/account contacts;
you can identify, pursue, and close deals. Creative, autonomous work
environment. Generous package: salary, commission, benefits.
Please send resume to: gina@gantthead.com. EOE, M/F/V/D.
For more information, see http://www.gantthead.com/Gantthead/jobs
______________________

> Katrillion, Web Research Assistant - Fort Lee, New Jersey

CityConnect, the first national city event guide for teens available on
all web and wireless platforms, is looking for an events-locating
super-sleuth to find content for posting on the web. The ideal candidate
must be -- able to find current information that may not be readily
available, a recent college grad, and possess a passion for pop culture
and teen trends. Internet savvy plus strong writing skills are essential.
Send resume and salary requirements to: ccstaff@katrillion.com
http://www.katrillion.com/cityconnect.com
______________________

> Bookspan, Web Designer - Long Island, New York

BOOKSPAN is seeking a Web Designer with preferably 1-2 years experience
for a freelance position (possible temp-to-hire). Work with a Sr. Designer
on the design of all-new web sites from top to bottom. PhotoShop,
Illustrator, hand-code HTML, and aptitude to learn proprietary
content-management software are an absolute must. Send resume in plain
text with URLs of your work, and list the three best-looking content or
e-commerce based sites you can find to: jgiannetti@booksonline.com
http://www.booksonline.com

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

> Third Annual Early Stage Capital Forum - January 31, 2002

Selection Committee is seeking executive summaries from technology
companies throughout the mid-Atlantic looking to raise $300,000 to
$5,000,000. Companies should submit their plans online. Hosted by DC
Technology Council in Partnership with Netpreneur, NVTC, HTM, GBTC and the
Mid-AtlanticVenture Association. To Submit plans go to:
http://www.dctechcouncil.org or Contact escf@wdctech.net
_____________________

> Marketing & PR Courses Taught by Journalists, 10% Discount - Worldwide

NEW courses: Ten Ways To Get Editors To Love Your Clients, Print Vs. Web
Publishing and How to Benefit, How To Write Press Releases For The Press
that get noticed, and The Anatomy Of Technical Publication Content - Learn
to influence IT publication content. Courses are taught by Journalists,
who share what caught their eye or made the difference! Contact
info@intellor.com or Visit
http://www.intellor.com/education/channels/?aid=8&source=ptw
_____________________

> AVAILABLE FOR HIRE: Latin America Business Dev. & Sales Executive

Senior, seasoned Tri-lingual (English, Spanish & Portuguese) Internet &
New Media business development executive -AVAILABLE FOR HIRE. Equally
competent in US & European market(s), as well as experienced in sales,
organization-building and management efforts, CRM deployment, and truly "a
door opener!"
For more information, contact rswerner@hotmail.com
_____________________

> Digital Media Wire Directory Launched

Digital Media Wire just launched the Digital Media Directory, an online
directory and RFP engine that facilitates the search and negotiation
process between buyers and sellers.

Register as a provider in the Digital Media Directory at
http://digitalmediawire.newmediary.com/dmw111301nl
______________________

> Available for Hire - Tech-Experienced Copy Writer/Marketing Manager

Marketing professional with over two years high tech experience within a
London marketing agency. Moved to DC seven months ago to set up first US
branch of UK business - seeking opportunities for full-time, part-time or
freelance marketing/communications projects.
Contact timdatwilsonharvey@hotmail.com
______________________

> SHORTSPAN Film & Video Festival, FINAL DATES

SHORT MOVIES! Dreamspan presents the 9TH Annual Short Attention Span Film & Video Festival. Shortspan is a non-stop two hour program of ALL NEW
two-minute-or-shorter films, including ultra-short documentaries like
"Peekaboo Sunday," a story about raising miniature horses or "Exotic
World," an inside look at the lives of some of America's first burlesque
performers-- and 57 more shorts! The tour will travel to 30 North American
cities. The remaining dates on the tour include:

NEW YORK CITY, NY: The Anthology Film Archives, Dec. 7-8, 9:30 PM
BIRMINGHAM, AL: WorkPlay, Dec. 20, 9:00 PM

More info: http://www.dreamspan.com/shortspan
______________________

To subscribe, go to:
http://www.digitalmediawire.com

Questions or comments? Send email to:
mark@digitalmediawire.com

News tips, press releases. Send email to:
editorial@digitalmediawire.com

Copyright 2001 Digital Media Wire