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Employees at San Francisco based PlayFirst and Palo Alto based Vuze  should all enter the holiday period smiling and reassured.  Wednesday, both the Casual Gamer and IPTV startups closed substantial Series C Financings.

•PlayFirst
For PlayFirst, the deal brought $16.5m of holiday cheer.  DCM led the round and existing investors including Mayfield Fund, Trinity Ventures and Rustic Canyon Partners also participated.   Including prior rounds, the new investment brings the cumulative investment in PlayFirst to $26.5m

PlayFirst was founded in 2004.   They were one of the first gaming companies Click to Read More

The last days of Viacom’s advertising partnership with DoubleClick were long ago foretold.  With Viacom still feuding with Google over YouTube and copyrights, and with Google’s purchase of DoubleClick likely nearing the end of regulatory review, it was just a matter of time.  Wednesday the hammer dropped and Viacom pledged its allegiance to Microsoft.

In a five year deal worth at least $500m in exchanged value, Microsoft and the media giant behind MTV Networks, Nickelodeon and Paramount pictures reached a complex advertising and content distribution deal.

Under the pact, Microsoft will license Viacom content (non-exclusively) for use on both Microsoft web properties and for the Xbox 360.

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In November 2005, Internet video syndication and platform service operator Brightcove closed a $16.2m Series B Financing round. Interactive Corp, which counts Ticketmaster, Citysearch and Ask among its properties was one of the lead investors. As part of the transaction, IAC’s CEO Barry Diller joined the board of directors. Now a few years have passed and the companies have decided to get more involved with each other.

Under a deal announced today, Brightcove will provide tools for publishing video content to web, managing video syndication and integrating advertising too all IAC businesses. Financial terms were not disclosed.

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Few new technologies have generated more PR and press coverage during periods of the past year than IPTV: peer to peer television broadcast over the net. Companies like Joost have billed themselves as TV’s future. Joost’s raised huge pools of funding, recruited a high profile CEO, even partnered with talent agency Creative Artists . Then they went quiet. Not much has been said about Joost in a while. Yesterday, they captured a few new headlines with the announcement of a partnership with the NBA. Today, they added PBS. Joost is back in the spotlight.

In partnering with the NBA, Joost will launch a channel showing current and classic NBA highlights on the Joost platform. The web distribution channel will be similar to other programming the NBA makes available via digital media, including offerings on YouTube and MySpace.

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In July, Gemstar-TV Guide announced it was reviewing “strategic alternatives” including the possibility of selling the company.  Fast forward to December, they’ve now found their buyer.

Macrovision, the content protection and Digital Rights Management (DRM) company,  grabbed the bulk of Friday’s headlines and much of the stock market’s ire after announcing they’d pay $2.8b to acquire the once powerful TV Guide brand and Gemstar’s other properties.

The deal represents an approximate 29% premium of July share value for Gemstar and a 6% premium over Thursday’s closing price.

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Earlier today Adobe announced the availability of the latest update for their popular browser video player software.  This latest version of Flash, previously codenamed Moviestar, had been in Beta since August.  Now available, it brings to market full support for high definition video.  Hulu, NBCU and Newscorp’s high profile video site wasted now time in taking advantage and supporting the upgrade.

Logging into Hulu’s beta moments ago, I was able to watch HD quality content streamed over the web. Available content was limited.  There were approximately a dozen movie trailers. I watched three; the previews for the now playing film, Hitman, Angelina Jolie’s upcoming movie, Wanted, and the soon to be released Charlie Wilson’s War trailer. I was impressed. Click to Read More

There’s no such thing as corporate Darwin Awards or business Razzie’s but when it comes to bad executive decisions or business "say what’s?" it seems there ought be something.

In fairness, there are lots of gambles that don’t pay off, decisions that look much worse in hindsight than they did on the drafting table. As the cliches go: Nothing ventured nothing gained. You’ve got to gamble sometimes. Take some risks. Bad decisions and mistakes, of course, happen all the time. I’m not talking about those. What I’m thinking about are those decisions that fall easily in to the "should have known better"category. Choices that seem to violate common sense. It seems there should be some sort of trophy to acknowledge those kinds of mental lapses in the executive wing. A decision that leaves people scratching their heads and going "watchoo talking about Willis."…that deserves a special Lucite block on the mantle.

Looking back over last weeks events, I’ve got to wonder if management at Blockbuster might be inline for such a nomination. Click to Read More