Daniel Frankel
Feb 10, 2012 12:51 PM
Universal Pictures put a lot of palms on foreheads this week when it announced that its summer comedy hit Bridesmaids has taken in $40 million so far across cable and internet VOD platforms. Certainly, it’s a big performance—long-entrenched entertainment data tracker Rentrak christened it the biggest VOD haul ever, while…
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Entertainment, Movies, DVD, Marketing, Media & Publishing, TV, VOD, Social Media, Video
Daniel Frankel
Feb 8, 2012 11:17 AM
Delaying DVD and Blu-ray rental releases to outlets including Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) and Redbox made the magic of Harry Potter even more potent. That was some of the takeaway from Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) Inc.‘s fourth-quarter financial report to investors Wednesday. Driven partly by strong disc sales of its eighth…
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Entertainment, Movies, DVD, Media & Publishing, TV, Money, Earnings, Companies, Time Warner
Laura Hazard Owen
Feb 8, 2012 10:01 AM
Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) is expanding its Prime Instant Video library in a deal with Viacom (NYSE: VIA), bringing the total number of streaming videos available free Prime members to over 15,000.
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Entertainment, Movies, Media & Publishing, TV, VOD, Mobile, Companies, Amazon, Viacom, MTV, amazon prime instant video, nickelodeon
Daniel Frankel
Feb 7, 2012 8:40 PM
It’s not the record average of 111 million viewers who watched the game on television, but NBC (NSDQ: CMCSA) says it notched a digital milestone Sunday. The network says that more than 2.1 million people streamed Super Bowl XLVI on computers, tablets and smart phones, which it declared the highest…
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Advertising, Entertainment, Sports, Mobile, Social Media, Video, Companies, NBC Universal, NBC
Daniel Frankel
Feb 7, 2012 10:32 AM
Good news for the developers of the iCloud, UltraViolet and other digital locker systems: nearly 90 percent of consumers say they’re inclined to use cloud-based digital storage solutions. The bad news? Nearly 70 percent say they’d be less apt to use these services if they’re charged for them.
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Entertainment
Ingrid Lunden
Feb 7, 2012 7:36 AM
Research In Motion is undeniably on the ropes at the moment, with the mobile handset maker weathering a decline in global market share, delays on new products, and the departure of its co-CEOs/founders in the last month after several bad quarters. But at a developers’ conference that kicked off today…
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Apps, Entertainment, Games, Mobile, Companies, Apple, iPad, iPhone, iTunes, Google, Android, RIM, BlackBerry, Countries, Europe, UK, playbook, thorsten heins
Daniel Frankel
Feb 6, 2012 9:41 AM
Offering perhaps the most defined threat to streaming movie leader Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) so far, Verizon and Redbox parent company Cointstar are going into business together. The companies announced Monday they’re partnering on a new subscription video service that will combine Redbox’s DVD and Blu-ray rental strengths with video streaming…
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Entertainment, Movies, DVD, Social Media, Video, Companies, Netflix, Verizon
Ingrid Lunden
Feb 3, 2012 10:20 AM
Much has been made of the mobile risks that Facebook laid out in its S-1 IPO filing earlier this week. Essentially, it’s seeing/pushing massive growth in mobile, but it still hasn’t tried out advertising, its most effective route to revenues, on this platform. That’s not to say it won’t. But…
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Advertising, Apps, Entertainment, Games, Mobile, Money, IPO, Technologies / Formats, SMS, Companies, Facebook, Zynga, facebook credits
Daniel Frankel
Feb 3, 2012 9:32 AM
In the mid-2000s, a technology called Kaleidescape was all the rage among the Hollywood intelligensia. Fillmakers like Brett Ratner and high-end consumers raved about Kaleidescape, which lets owners upload their entire DVD collections onto one centralized hard drive that can be accessed from any screening room in their swanky homes.…
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Entertainment, Movies, DVD, Legal, Copyright
Jeff Roberts
Feb 2, 2012 5:55 PM
In what is becoming a ritual akin to Superbowl Week itself, federal prosecutors today announced the seizure of 16 websites that offered live streaming of sporting events and 291 others that sold counterfeit sports merchandise.
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Entertainment, Sports, Legal, Copyright, Piracy, Media & Publishing, TV, Events, homeland security, superbowl, website seizures
Daniel Frankel
Feb 2, 2012 3:42 PM
Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) is hoping a new tech partner will help make its streaming more efficient to satisfy new bandwidth caps from internet service providers that come with potential financial penalties.
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Entertainment, Social Media, Video, Companies, Netflix
Robert Andrews
Feb 2, 2012 9:47 AM
Two European companies are this week taking venture capital in the games space…
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Entertainment, Games, Mobile, Money, M&A & Venture Capital, Venture Capital
Ingrid Lunden
Feb 1, 2012 5:24 AM
Disney (NYSE: DIS) Mobile, the short-lived U.S. MVNO that found a new lease of life in Japan through a Softbank JV in 2008, has now launched two new Android handsets in partnership with NTT Docomo, the country’s biggest carrier.
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Entertainment, Games, Mobile, Companies, Disney, Disney Mobile, DoCoMo, Google, Android, Countries, Asia, Japan, forked android
Will Richmond
VideoNuze
Jan 31, 2012 12:49 PM
There are many exciting things happening in the online video industry, but to my mind, none is more noteworthy than the radical transformation of YouTube.
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Entertainment, Media & Publishing, TV, Broadcast, Cable & Telecom, VOD, Social Media, Video, Companies, Google, YouTube
Daniel Frankel
Jan 30, 2012 5:06 PM
Can SnagFilms become the Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) of the independent film sector? Washington, DC-based SnagFilms, which offers access to a library of about 3,000 indie movie titles for viewing on over 100 types of digital devices, took another step in that direction Monday when it announced an additional funding and…
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Entertainment, Media & Publishing, TV, VOD, Companies, Netflix
Ingrid Lunden
Jan 30, 2012 6:20 AM
Looks like new CEO Scott Thompson is wasting little time starting to get Yahoo’s house in order: just a few weeks into the new CEO’s tenure, the internet company is pulling support for 10 of its less-popular mobile apps.
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Apps, Entertainment, Movies, Sports, Media & Publishing, TV, Mobile, Search, Companies, Apple, iPad, iPhone, Google, Android, Groupon, Portals, RIM, BlackBerry, Twitter, Yahoo
Robert Andrews
Jan 30, 2012 4:12 AM
I’ll bet The Times sub-editors raised some eyebrows when their business writer Emily Ford filed her piece, Why I’m not paying any more, for the weekend…
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Entertainment, Music, Media & Publishing, Newspapers, Online News, Companies, News Corp., News International, Spotify
Jeff Roberts
Jan 27, 2012 9:34 AM
Angry game owners are demanding Google (NSDQ: GOOG) compensate them for wiping out their investments in online pets. The loss of a virtual kitty may seem like a trifle to some but, in the big picture, the new lawsuit could be a bellwether for how the law treats what is…
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Entertainment, Games, Legal, Companies, Facebook, facebook credits, slide, superpoke pets, virtual currencies
Robert Andrews
Jan 27, 2012 7:00 AM
Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) expects overseas losses to double in just three months, as it spends more and more on vital local video content and marketing.
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Entertainment, Movies, Media & Publishing, TV, IPTV, VOD, Companies, Netflix
Robert Andrews
Jan 26, 2012 7:52 PM
Early last week, a six-month promotion period, during which U.S. users were exempted from Spotify’s five-plays-per-song, 10-hours-per-month limits, was due to end for the first of the service’s American adopters, if reports were to be believed. But that apparently hasn’t yet happened.
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Entertainment, Music, Companies, Spotify
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