Metue.com

It was a busy day at the courts.  In unrelated intellectual property cases Google saw its list of adversaries expand and Microsoft received a $1.5b dollar judicial reprieve.  (a Metue article on the Microsoft news is here.)

For Google, it’s been copyright, copyright, copyright.   For months, the company has been battling with Viacom over YouTube and the claim that the popular video-sharing site is a conduit for copyright infringement; essentially a service encouraging copyright violation.

The billion dollar infringement suit was filed in New York as a class action complaint on May 4th.  Since then, plaintiffs have been lining up to participate.  Now, in addition to Viacom (which is the parent of MTV Networks and Paramount Pictures) and the English Premier League (soccer/football), eight new plaintiffs were revealed Monday. Click to Read More

Most people are familiar with the cliché: if at first you don’t succeed, try try again. What happens, though, if it at first you did succeed? Does practice make perfect?  Do you still try again?

Eric Baker seems to think so.   In 2004, Mr. Baker walked away from then rapidly growing secondary ticket marketplace StubHub (of which he was co-founder).  Seeking opportunity and adventure, he packed his bags and,  in 2005, moved across the Atlantic and in London, started Viagogo, a similar ticket reseller aimed at capturing the European marketplace.

StubHub sold to eBay last January for  about $310m, making Eric, who reportedly held 10 percent of the company, a sizable windfall.  That, however, didn’t slow him down or stifle his ambitions. Click to Read More

Discovery Communications is moving ahead with confidence into new media.  A day after acquiring a popular environmental lifestyle site to be a companion site for a their soon to be launched Planet Green channel, the company has also announced they will be making first run full length episodes of some of their programming available online.

Beginning August 3rd , Discovery will premier Meerkat Manor, a program its Animal Planet cable channel, online a week before airing the episodes on television.  Episodes of Discovery Channel’s  program Dirty Jobs and The Learning Channel’s new tattoo art spin off LA Ink will also air online (both of those programs will debut on television and then be made available online a day later). Click to Read More

If you’re not a preteen, a relative of one, or someone following the media industry, you probably haven’t’ heard of Club Penguin or its rival Webkinz.     The sites provide interactive games and social network like features for preteens. Club Penguin, launched in 2005, was designed to be a fun, safe, game and activity environment for today’s internet enabled children aged 6 to 14; MySpace for the younger set. On the site, kids can adopt and interact with virtual Penguins or chat and play games with other kids on the site.

Wednesday, coinciding with their earnings release, Disney announced they were buying the British Colombia based company for $350m in cash plus revenue performance incentives that could make the kids social network worth as much as $700m. 

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It’s a lot easier to follow what’s been proven, what’s known, than to start from the ground up. This summer at the movies, as much as any summer, has been living proof. We’ve been given  Die Hard (Part 4), Harry Potter (Part 5), Ocean’s 13, Spiderman 3, this week we’ll get Bourne Ultimatum (part 3) …and there’s a long list of others.  Hollywood loves a good sequel. 

That same tendency to follow what’s been proven is fueling Hollywood’s new love for Internet video.  Audience’s appetites are growing larger and larger and like a well tested sequel ready to capitalize,  professional entertainers are  embracing Internet video now that the marketplace is burgeoning. 

Today, a site called My Damn Channel will become the latest addition to the list of Hollywood backed video outlets online. Apparently, the bandwagon is moving and, as it passes Sunset Blvd, it’s time to jump on.

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One of the tenets of the Web 2.0 world is user-generated content, the idea that anyone can use a few easy internet tools to publish their works – a blog, an article, a video, a picture, whatever you want. 

With Web 2.0 there are fewer editors, fewer barriers.  That obviously brings with it pros and cons.  On the one hand it gives voices to hundreds of thousands of people who might otherwise not have been able to get past the gatekeepers.  There’s an opportunity for anyone to find an audience.  On the other hand, well, it gives voices to hundreds of thousands of people who might otherwise have not been able to get past the gatekeepers.    Everyone is able to judge for themselves what is worth paying attention to and what isn’t, but sometimes the gatekeepers (the editors, the A&R people, the talent scouts) functioned as as a useful filter.  Web 2.0 often lacks that – for better and for worse.   The challenge in the new media world is finding what you want; separating the metaphorical wheat from the chafe, finding the diamonds and throwing back the coal.

In journalism, outside of blogs and those equipped to build and host their own websites, one of the Web 2.0 companies embracing user generated content for news has been NowPublic. Now, thanks to a new financing, they’ll soon become more widely known.

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Last February, AOL and HBO joined forces to create a website for comedy video called ThisJustIn.com.  The effort was HBO’s first effort to bring its content development skills online outside of HBO.com. 

The Hollywood Reporter reported today, citing unnamed sources, that This Just In will shut down in August.

Predating comedy portal FunnyorDie.com (launched in April with a number of Hollywood stars), “This Just In” was designed to be a home for original content, and something of a focus group for developing new material with the niche of comedy video.

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