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Global venture capital investments are at a six year high and technology continues to encroach on the domain of entertainment and media.  We have net radio, TV and print news increasingly available online.   Even actors and movie industry veterans have moved to create both their own online distribution outlets, and their own brands of online content.  Think Will Ferrel’s Funny or Die, the Coen brothers with 60 Frames Entertainment, or Jerry Zucker (of Airplane fame) with National Banana.   It makes sense, given all this to see Hollywood jumping deeper into venture capital, private equity and early stage investment.

Earlier this week, PaidContent discovered the latest entry will come from Hollywood’s elite talent agencies.  Creative Artists (CAA), the biggest of the bunch, is reportedly raising $150m to $200m for venture investment in digital entertainment. They are seeking funds from traditional limited partners like pension funds and being advised by experienced Silicon Valley VC’s.

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Like much of the media industry, the U.K.’s  BBC is struggling to adapt the changing ways consumers are quenching their information thirsts.  At times, it seems like they’re trying everything, like anything goes; especially over the past few months.

In July, BBC released a second Beta test for peer to peer media player software dubbed iPlayer.  In October, the Financial Times and other publications reported  that as much as 12% of BBC staff would be layed off.  Now, November, add joint venture to the mix.

Tuesday, several UK top broadcasters including the BBC (BBC Worldwide),  ITV and Channel 4, announced they will jointly launch an on-demand Internet video joint venture in 2008. The partnership, which is codenamed “Project Kangaroo,” sounds a lot like NBC Universal and News Corps recently launched (beta) Hulu platform.

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The markets may be volatile and concerned but the VC industry is chugging ahead.  There have been 4 IPO’s and 4 $100m-plus M&A exits for portfolio companies at Accel Ventures this year.  Buoyed by that success, the firm just closed their tenth fund with $520m available for investment.  That total, while still below the $950m raised in 2000,  is up a handsome 30% over prior fund Accel IX  (IX closed with $400m in 2004). 

Accel hasn’t been involved in any new digital media or entertainment related deals the past couple weeks, but other firms have committed plenty of capital.  Takkle, Vivox and Vobile are among the recipients.  On the other hand, AmeriTV, a supposed IPTV company that sounds like Joost, apparently didn’t receive capital despite a press release to the contrary.  AmeriTV’s financing, possibly even the existence of the company, appear to have been a hoax that tripped up a few news sites that didn’t check on their facts.

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In February 2006, notable executives from Internet companies and Telecom giants converged on Capital Hill to lobby to consider revising a ten year old Telecom bill.   The issue at stake was the concept of Net Neutrality, a divisive idea suggesting that all internet content (regardless of format) should be treated equally.   

On one side of the debate fell Internet and software companies.  Businesses like Google and Yahoo wanted to insure that all websites – from blog to portal, could be accessed equally.  Even more so, they wanted legislation that would protect different types of content like video, or music, or the technologies that deliver them (like Peer to Peer) from arbitrary exclusion.  Their goal was to insure nothing was singled out and taxed by the ISP’s who control the supply pipeline, the network infrastructure over which Internet traffic flows.  The software and Internet companies wanted to insure their content would always flow freely without tax or toll.

The Telecom companies, on the other side of the stage, wanted the freedom of an unregulated market.  Click to Read More

The period leading up the the Thanksgiving holiday tends to be among the quieter times for venture investments but plenty of checks are getting written. In fact, despite an increasingly crowded market and lack of new "disruptive" technologies, Internet video remains hot. mDialog and Vitrue are among the slate who’ve gotten new capital. Here’s a roundup of five recent deals.

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Beta Tests in software development used to be sandboxes for limited 3rd party testing. That was before Web 2.0, before Internet based services and features became the new face of the software industry.  Now, increasingly Beta has become an ambiguous term. 

Today, Beta’s often start out limited, as invitation-only tests, but they morph into full fledged, publicly accessible services.  Beta has become code for “we may still change it” and “it may still break when you use it.”  It’s  a disclaimer for anything goes.  Company’s like Google have stuck the label on their services for years.  It’s no longer a clear marker, nor a clear meaning.

At Google, Larry Page, has said, “If it’s on there for five years because we think we’re going to make major changes for five years, that’s fine. It’s really a messaging and branding thing."

So, Beta doesn’t mean much as a word anymore. That doesn’t mean there aren’t notable milestones.  The transition from invitation-only to public access is a good one.  When a software product is officially unleashed on the world, it’s crossed a bridge.  Joost, the Internet peer to peer video service, passed that marker this weekend. Click to Read More

Mix Hollywood Dreams and Sandhill’s Green and you get a lot of would be movie moguls focusing their creative powers on Internet video.

The latest to add to the growing list is Deca, a Santa Monica based studio that’s billing itself as “the best of Hollywood, Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley.”

Deca will start out with $5m in funding from Mayfield Fund, General Catalyst Partners and Atomica Partners, a fund from Joost co founder Niklas Zennstrom. The financing was closed in July using the name Digital Entertainment Corp of America. Deca, being the obvious acronym. CEO and Co-Founder, Michael Wayne was formerly a VP for strategic alliances at Sony Pictures.

Internet Video Studios (“IV Studios”) like Deca are popping up like weeds. Click to Read More