Bits & Bytes

>”Many traditional media companies are growing their own digital presences, either by employing a Web-only staff, inviting a well-known blogger to cover the shows on their sites, or getting a notable to blog for them. Fabiola Beracasa will contribute to Elle’s and New York magazine’s media coverage, and both Web sites will have models blogging — Selita Ebanks at New York, and Maggie Rizer at Elle. But not all doors are open. ‘Marc, Ralph, Calvin — anyone who can be referred to by his first name is off limits to bloggers,’ said Julie Fredrickson, founder of the network of blogs called Coutorture.” (WWD)

 >”At last night’s NYC Tech Meet-Up, the prevailing theme was that old Web 2.0 saw “You make the content, we make the revenue.’ The event at Cooper Union drew an estimated 450 of New York’s technorati– most from startups, as a show of hands revealed. Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Silicon Alley … There was Henry Blodget imploring potential ‘contributors’ to write for his new NYC-focused tech website, Silicon Alley Insider ; a Gawker Media rep discussing how Gawker plans to capitalize on its rabid hoard of commenters; and the Iminlikewithyou.com dude, who spoke of leveraging external blogs to create custom dating portals. The pitches sounded a common theme: the desperate land-grab for free content against which to run advertising.” (Portfolio)

>”Former AOL Chief Executive Jonathan F. Miller and former Fox Interactive Media President Ross Levinsohn have joined together to start an Internet company, according to people close to the situation. General Atlantic LLC, a private-equity firm, has committed to back Messrs. Levinsohn and Miller’s investments in Internet start-ups, these people say. General Atlantic in a statement said the two men had agreed to become advisers to the private-equity firm and declined further comment. The new entity, called Velocity Investment Group, is already actively scouting for acquisitions and has signed letters of intent with a few consumer-oriented Internet companies.” (WSJ via Iwantmedia)

Ron Mwangaguhunga

Eric Schmidt and Marcy Simon, 2Gether

 

They don’t just have The French Riviera. Google CEO Eric Shmidt has fit his girfriend Marcy Simon — formerly of media consulting firm WCTV — into Google’s New York offices. From those intrepid Page Sixxies:

“DESPITE the cramped environment in Google’s new West Chelsea offices, company CEO Eric Schmidt somehow found room to squeeze in one more – his close, personal pal Marcy Simon. Valleywag.com reports that Simon, whose friendship with Schmidt has kept eyebrows raised in Silicon Valley for a while now, ‘definitely has an office there. What her duties at Google are is unclear.; A Google flack told us, ‘We don’t comment on individual consultants or the work they do for us.’”

Ron Mwangaguhunga

Rick Rubin in the Times Magazine

 

Did you read the Rick Rubin cover story of the New York Times Magazine? It makes one wonder how the music industry as it is presently constituted ever was as cool as our parents actually said it was. Even Hollywood, sometimes, seems to cower like a pimpled geek before the all-encompassing coolness of the music industry, whose disasterous business model had Courtney Love howling  aloud into the night at the turn of the milennium: How could she be broke (Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment)!

Instead of flowing and vibing with the Napster business model — which was, admittedly, flawed – this soi-dissant Olympus of Cool-and-Hip took a thumoeideutic sledge-hammer by the name of Hillary Rosen to the digital music revolution.

 And that solved nothing.

Did the RIAA really think that penniless, digitally-literate and smart college students — angel-headed hipsters — could afford to spend $20 on a CD? Or, worse, $100 on 5? Music is the soundtrack of the college experience; nothing is going to stop a kid from getting his music-on. Come on now. The “cool” music industry should have caught that flavor. Did the ultra-litigious RIAA — suing a 12-year old? How ”assy” was that? — truly think that students wouldn’t find some way around the outrageousness of the pricing schema. Why pay $20 for a CD where the listener only wants 3 songs.

 And so here we are. A digital music universe. This time, Steve Jobs — not Sean Fanning — trumped the music industry. And so the industry is looking to Rick Rubin (Always more of a creative type than a suit), the coolest kid in the class, to save their hash. It’s probably too late. From the NYTimes:

“‘The most important thing we have to do now is get the art right. So many of the decisions at these companies have not been about the music. They sign artists for the wrong reasons — because they think somebody else wants them or if they need to have a record out by a certain date. That old way of doing things is obsolete, but luckily, fear is making the record companies less arrogant. They’re more open to ideas. So, what’s important now is to find music that’s timeless. I still believe that if an artist gains the belief of the listener, then anything is possible.’”

With all due respect to Rick Rubin, it is not the Art, but the business model that needs tending. A college student would not pay $20 for a CD so that 11 A-&-R guys could smoke hydroponic and maybe check out a few acts and “get-back-to-you-later,” bro. The old way of running things — and it sounded like a blast — is over. In the future, musicians are going to have to pick themselves up by their own bootstraps and manage their own careers — Art to Business; soup to nuts – a la music revolutionaries Ani DiFranco and Prince. Or else, if they are too lazy, hire a middleman. But a middleman is not a record label. No one needs a record label – or Rolling Stone Magazine, for that matter — in a digital universe where the listeners and the influential music blogs are the gatekeepers.

But it is never going back to the way it was.

Ron Mwangaguhunga

AmericanLife TV Joins VOD

The AmericanLife TV Network, which runs Baby Boomer-nostalgia-ish programming — sometimes, like in the case of “Hill Street Blues” and “St. Elsewhere,” quite good stuff — is joining VOD. The programming is not that bad — consider: “A Journey to Darfur” with George Clooney — considering their obviously limited budget. From the press release:

“AmericanLife TV Network is joining the video-on-demand party, offering up 20 hours of programming per month to any of TVN Entertainment’s more than 100 cable affiliates free of charge. The service launches Labor Day (Sept. 3).

 ”Programs on the nostalgia-centric digital network’s new on-demand service fall into four categories:

“’Classic TV’ will feature such shows as Combat!, The Color Honeymooners and Mission: Impossible (in January).

“’Caring and Sharing TV’ features American Family, The Dr. Bob Show and specials such as A Journey to Darfur with George Clooney.

“’Cooking and Living TV’ features programming including This Food, That Wine, Embassy Chefs and Fixing Dinner.

“And ‘Lifestyle TV’ features Alive and Well, Flea Market Mania and Save Our House, Save Our Family.

“A quarter of the programming will be refreshed each week.”

Bits & Bytes

 

>”I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. Although I like to tell people I’m a Libertarian, I’m really not. I’m unaffiliated with any political party. In fact I can’t think of anything good that comes from political parties because they do just one thing, politics.When I vote in any local or state election, I vote for the candidate who I think will do the least.” (Blogmaverick) 

>”It is Columbia’s belief that Rubin will hear the answers in the music — that he will find the solution to its ever-increasing woes. The mighty music business is in free fall — it has lost control of radio; retail outlets like Tower Records have shut down; MTV rarely broadcasts music videos; and the once lucrative album market has been overshadowed by downloaded singles, which mainly benefits Apple. ‘The music business, as a whole, has lost its faith in content,’ David Geffen, the legendary music mogul, told me recently. ” (NYTimesMagazine) 

>”The fall TV season is about to start and every major network is trying to recreate their most-watched series for online consumption. ABC is bringing an extra third hour of Good Morning America to the web on Tuesday, TVWeek reports. While ABC’s new broadband extension, called GMA Now, comes a week before NBC adds a fourth hour to its morning warhorse, The Today Show, the network says the online program’s debut is unrelated to its rival’s moves.” (Paidcontent)

>”HDNet’s Redacted, an original movie on Iraq by Brian De Palma, stunned the Venice Film Festival this past weekend; its HDNet premiere date has not been announced. [Reuters | Globe & Mail]” (Cable360)

 >”As students head back to school, they’re chatting up all things Apple (AAPL – Cramer’s Take – Stockpickr) — iPods, iPhones and so on. And it’s that buzz that makes Apple the ultimate back-to-school stock play, Jim Cramer said on a TheStreet.com TV video Tuesday. ” (TheStreet)

>”When I first asked Kenny Herman how he knew N3 Co-Founder, Emil Rensing, he smirked and said, “it’s a long story.” Yet what I was able to get out of him is that after years of friendship and working together on some Spike TV projects, Kenny was prepared to take on the role as our Automotive Network Manager. Not too shabby for this recent Albany grad. He and the FLD Team have broke some exciting news since his arrival in June. Most recently they posted highly coveted photos of the Porsche Panamera which until now had not been widely available. This Labor Day weekend, marks Fast Lane Daily’s 150th episode and with Kenny at the helm, they’re bound to see many more.” (NextNewNetwork)

>”Ad-supported online music service SpiralFrog, one of 2006’s candidate’s for most-hyped new product, and still half-vaporware (it has launched a closed beta), has filed its detailed financial with SEC, though I am not sure what triggered the Form 10SB filings (it is a private company). A good picture of its slightly-dire financials, or at least when it ran out of money and the management changes.” (Paidcontent)

>”Much of the Internet business strikes me less like a garage model, with that suggestion of tinkering, and more like the famous conversations about the permutations of socialism in the New York City College cafeterias of the 1930s—ours, however, are about the permutations of technology and information. And they take place on conference calls.” (VanityFair)

Apple Responds to NBC

Apple, in response to NBC’s increasingly aggressive negotiating tactics, is not going to offer NBC TV shows for the upcoming Fall TV season on iTunes. This ratcheting of tensions could conceivably evaporate if the two companies come to some sort of agreement. NBC accounts for 40 percent of Apple’s iTunes downloads. From John Shinal of MarketWatch:

”The Apple-NBC story in a nutshell is that NBC Universal executives did a bad impersonation of Marlon Brando and made Jobs an offer that he couldn’t accept.”According to the release from Apple, NBC’s offer would have forced the Cupertino, Calif.-based company to raise the price of an episode to $4.99 from $1.99. Rather than wait until December, when the current agreement ends, Jobs slammed the door on the relationship.
The question now is who will be more hurt by the split.”

Three of the10 best-selling shows on iTunes last season were NBC properties.

(image via clipart)

Blogging Fashion Week

 

I have a pet theory: The massive amounts of information that need to be conveyed — and consumed — at breakneck speed makes blogging the perfect medium to communicate all that is Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Even daily newspapers get left behind when it comes to the sheer massiveness of Fashion Week, from the parties, to the gossip to the trends of the season. Paper Magazine is stepping a toe into those experimental waters, utilizing three colorful bloggers well known to the fashionistas — Fabian Basabe, Olivia Palermo and James Coviello. From Basabe:

 ”So, Fashion Week begins today — that seven-day stretch beneath the tents in Bryant Park, where designers flaunt their latest fashions, models run naked behind the stage, and champagne and celebrities are equally abundant. Seasoned fashionistas are gearing up. Many household names return to claim their coveted front-row seats, while the newbies decide who they’ll latch onto this fall for a few freebies and a photo-op. And some others, my God, have no business being here.

“The parties… the pictures… I assure you, what happens during Fashion Week does not stay at Fashion Week. From behind their dark glasses — everyone is watching. And if they aren’t, well, that’s where I come in.

“By no means am I actually involved in the fashion industry. I am a guest… a personality… a friend of fashion, if you will. I have many relationships with genius talents and pretty faces, and will introduce them to you one by one throughout the week.”

 More (Papermag)

Bits and Bytes

>”So far, it seems that Hulu’s offering won’t have content from CBS and other major networks. That could change if Hulu gets a huge audience. Right now, however, CBS and others are focusing on distributing their content as widely as possible to the places where people are already watching. ‘CBS’s strategy is to pursue open, multi-partner, nonexclusive relationships with established video destinations, widgets, and application vendor companies, as well as regular syndicators,’ says Quincy Smith, president of CBS Interactive. In short, says Smith, the company wants to ‘take it to where the eyeballs are.’ (BusinessWeek) 

>”Mark Cuban, the HDTV Pioneer and Dallas Mavericks owner, will be putting on his dancing shoes as a contestant in this season’s Dancing with the Stars, the ABC mega-hit, network officials said Wednesday. Outspoken Cuban, founder of HDNet and an Internet-broadcasting pioneer, is one of a dozen celebrities that will be competing in the ballroom-dance competition, which kicks off its fifth season Sept. 24.” (Multichannel)

 >”Last night Gothamist, the 1010Wins of the blogosphere, held a dating event called ‘Check Out’ at Whole Foods on the Bowery. Apparently (and, pretty predictably) the event was an unmitigated disaster.” (Gawker)

Introducing: FiLife

Paidcontent is reporting that a joint venture online personal finance site between Barry Diller’s IAC and Dow Jones is called FiLife. The site is in the very early stages (Aren’t we all?), and apparenly will launch on October. Staff writers include: Mary Pilon, Sam Grobart, Tara Siegel Bernard, Ron Lieber and Irina Aleksander. 

Ron Mwangaguhunga

MSNBC and CondeNet Partner

 

MSNBC.com and CondeNet have reached an interesting content deal that potentially benefits both brands greatly. The deal involves well-established CondeNet online properties like Style.com and Epicurious.com, as well as Conde Nast high-end glossy titles, like Vogue, Gourmet and Vanity Fair. Sandor Marik,director-marketing for CondeNet, notes in AdAge that the partnership could extend the reach of their content. From Andrew Hampp of AdAge:

”So news from MSNBC.com won’t appear on VanityFair.com, but a political piece from Christopher Hitchens could easily show up next to MSNBC.com’s political coverage. Additionally, its lifestyle section, which normally focuses on segments and features from NBC’s ‘Today’ show, will be largely enhanced under the new deal.”

 ”Jim Pollock, business development manager for MSNBC.com, said there is always potential for the new relationship to extend into the on-air realm as well. ‘With MSNBC cable and with the Today show, there are crossover possibilities in just about everything we do.”’ 

 

The acerbic Christopher Hitchens, with his remarkably well-timed meditations on atheism and Mother Theresa, is particularly good on cable. MSNBC is the logical venue for his controversial style (Full Disclosure: I interned under Hitchens at The Nation). And Andre Leon Talley and Anna Wintour are tailor made for the Today show audience.  

Ron Mwangaguhunga (All articles written by unless otherwise noted)