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In  a conference call yesterday, Yahoo and the so called “Newspaper Consortium,” which was formed in November, and  includes more than 250 newspapers across 44 states including the holdings of large publishers like McClatchy and Media News, announced an expansion of their advertising joint venture. (Notably absent from the Consortium are Gannet and Tribune (the two heavyweights). They have been reported to be developing their own Ad Network. McClatchy was going to be part of that effort but switched course to work with Yahoo)

Initially the papers represented in the Consortium and Yahoo worked together in a partnership for job related advertising with Yahoo’s Hot-Jobs property.  Now, in a second part of what has been described as a three part deal, the two will focus on broader, and more lucrative, joint advertising.

Under the terms of the deal, both Yahoo and the papers Click to Read More

James Brown once said “Music has to breathe and sweat. You have to play it live. ” For a long time, I thought the same logic applied to listening. For a real experience, I thought, to really feel it, you had to have the hum of the P.A. speakers and the sway of the crowd. You had to have that spirit, that buzz. 

I rarely go to concerts anymore.  Not too long ago I went to see at least one a month. I’d see U2 every time they came around.  I heard Norah Jones cover AC/DC at the famous Fillmore.  I saw Bonnie Raitt in her home territory at a restored Art Deco theater.  I saw Indie acts, blues greats, aging-rockers, and up and comers.   But I got tired.

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Since its release in November 2006, one of the questions that’s followed the Sony Playstation 3 (PS3) platform has been whether the choice to offer  two versions of the console (varying primarily by the size of the hard drive and the inclusion of built in wireless support) was a wise product marketing move.

At the time of its initial release, a parts shortage attributed to laser parts for  the BluRay DVD player was slowing delivery on the boxes.    There was also heavy competition from the newly released Nintendo Wii and from Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

With a price difference between the two Playstation models of about $100  there was a question of whether consumers would find the value propositions distinct enough to influence their buying decision.  

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On Thursday, Apple announced it would delay the release of its latest Mac operating system (“Leopard”)  until October (versus a planned spring birth announcement) in order to divert greater corporate resources to insure the on-time, June, delivery of the hotly anticipated iPhone.

Bloggers and professional journalists are speculating that the delay is really for other reasons. Apple Insider, a popular blog on Apple and its issues, is reporting Wall Street analysts suspect “Secret” features of the operating system are really to blame. 

While there is nothing to substantiate those claims, it is clear that in recent years delayed release of keenly anticipated Apple products has been common.  Whether this delay, or others, have been the result of unforeseen development issues, parts shortages, overstretched assembly lines at contract manufacturers (like Taiwanese company Inventec which makes 5th Generation video iPod’s and is rumored to be assembling the iPhone), the result of overly ambitious timelines inside Apple or even part of a marketing effort to inflate demand, is unclear.    

Looking back over the past few years, here are just a few of Apple’s delayed launches:

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Business in Silicon Valley generally tends to be done quickly.   There’s a tendency to jump into things head first, even sometimes blindfolded.  It’s the nature of high tech and the entrepreneurial culture.

In Hollywood business tends to be done more slowly.  There’s lunch before dinner, coffee before dessert.  The process involves more relationship building.  It’s a tendency to move moderately. To make changes judiciously.  It’s a process of testing the waters, sticking a toe in, then a foot, before jumping ahead.  Major media, as the occasional joke goes, likes a lot of foreplay, it likes to date for a good while before getting intimate. 

Apple has been a patient suitor, and the rewards are starting to show. Yesterday, Apple  and MGM announced that films from the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer library, which includes the Rocky franchise and a wide range of generation spanning classics, will be available on iTunes.

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Today, Comcast announced it had reached an agreement to acquire movie-ticketing site Fandango. While the deal size was not deemed "material" relative to Comcast’s financial’s and therefore doesn’t require disclosure, it’s likely the purchase prices falls in or near the range of $165m to $180m. That price is estimated based in part on estimated fees from usage (with unique usage numbers used as reported by Comscore) and in part, relative to the multiples (relative to estimated revenue and usage) applied to eBay’s purchase of concert and sports event ticket-seller Stubhub. ( Stubhub sold for $310m earlier this year).

More specifically, the estimated price uses calculations that try to consider i. an estimated closing rate (e.g. what percentage of unique customers complete transactions versus those at the site to just browse concert ticket prices (at Stubhub) or check movie times (at Fandango); ii. recognition that Stubhub sells concert and event tickets for prices of 5x to 10x typical movie tickets and that generates substantially higher fees per transaction than the $1/ticket service fee at Fandango; and iii. that Stubhubs smaller monthly visitor number decreases their share of ad revenue and total transaction volume.

Fandango, which was founded in 2000 by a consortium of movie distributors and investors, sells tickets for more than 1,300 Theaters. Over the past year, Fandango has been fighting with Movietickets.com for the title of being the most-visited online movie-ticket seller (AOL’s Moviefone which does provide links for ticket sales has far greater usage numbers but is not included in the category). In December ‘06, Fandango had approximately 5.8m unique visitors. In February, a slightly slower month in the cyclical movie industry, Fandango had 3.8m unique visitors who generated approximately 39m page views (according to Comscore statistics).

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Seattle based Getty Images continues to pursue an aggressive expansion model by means of acquisition.

Today, in its second acquisition of the year, Getty Images announced that it was acquiring Ireland-based Pixel Graphics holdings for $135m in cash.

Pixel Graphics Holdings is the parent company to Stockbyte and Stockdisk, two royalty-free content providers. The transition will be an easy one: most of Stockbyte’s image collection was already distributed through Getty, and the remainder of its catalog will follow shortly.

Speaking of the transaction, Jonathan Klein, Getty Images’ co-founder and Chief Executive Officer said: “Worldwide demand for imagery continues to grow as our customers increasingly explore new, image-rich communication platforms as a means to break through the clutter. The acquisition is in line with our strategy of acquiring and producing increased amounts of relevant wholly-owned imagery."

The wholly-owned royalty-free content available through Stockbyte is a significant departure from the user-owned royalty-free content delivered through Getty’s other image service: istockphoto.

There is no question, Getty is busy. In addition to this transaction, earlier this year Getty acquired the parent company of Wireimage, which owned the largest celebrity photo and video archive. In March, it also, signed a partnership deal to license and distribute photos and video footage from Warner Brothers Entertainment’s archives. I wonder what is next on the shopping list.