Bits and Bytes

>Scott Gilbertson of Wired reports that “Google could be rolling out some form of copyright detection for YouTube as early as next month. The release timeline comes from a Google attorney who is defending the company against Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube. In a pretrial hearing Google’s attorney told the judge that the company was working ‘very intensely’ on a video recognition technology and hoped to release it sometime in September.” (Monkeybites)

>AP reports (via Forbes): “Newspaper publisher New York Times Co. said Monday it will collaborate with NBC News/msnbc.com on 2008 presidential election coverage. The agreement will allow New York Times to use NBC’s political videos on its NYTimes.com Web site, while Msnbc.com will be able to use national political content from NYTimes.com on its site.” (AP via Forbes)

>From Steve Donohue of Multichannel: “Cablevision Systems said it plans to launch a video-on-demand channel programmed by CNET Tuesday.The VOD channel, CNET TV-Powered by Optimum, is available at no additional charge to Cablevision’s iO: Interactive Optimum digital-cable subscribers.” (Multichannel)

From Jack Coyle of AP via MercuryNews: “To commemorate ‘OK Computer,’ the music blog Stereogum.com commissioned a full cover album: ‘OKX: A Tribute to OK Computer,’ (http://www.stereogum.com/okx). The site turned to a dozen indie acts and buzzed-about artists—the sort of bands the site likes to hype—to put their spin on the album’s 12 tracks. Among them are Cold War Kids, My Brightest Diamond, Twilight Sad, John Vanderslice, David Bazan and others.” (Merc via AP)

>Brad Stone of NYT reports: “Facebook, the online social network, has stolen some of MySpace’s momentum with users and the news media. Now, it is being subjected to the same accusations that it does not do enough to keep sexual predators off its site. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut’s attorney general, said that investigators in his state were looking into ‘three or more” cases of convicted sex offenders who had registered on Facebook and had ‘also found inappropriate images and content’ on the service.’” (NYT)

>From GameDaily via HollywoodReporter “Video game maker Take-Two Interactive Software has revealed in a regulatory filing that it has amended an agreement with ZelnickMedia Corp., the media firm of Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick that provides financial and management consulting services to the company.”(GameDaily)

USANetwork and Social Networking

Cable’s USA Network, which received 12 Emmy nominations, is making a credible attempt – along with FX and Bravo — at becoming “The Fifth Network,” a position of prestige that is wide-open as a result of the exit of the critically-acclaimed series The Soprano’s and, to a lesser degree, Deadwood, from HBO’s formerly roster. A USA spokesperson emailed Webnewser, “USA launched six scripted originals this summer, which is a first for any network. Our originals relate fun, relatable characters in interesting situations – ‘high concept characters with jobs.’”

Online, USA is equally as ambitious, seeking to integrate the cable channel’s successful character-driven formula into a social networking online destination. USANetwork.com’s “Show us Your Character” campaign in its first incarnation last year was intriguing, though less effective than USA’s offline efforts. However, as an NBC spokesperson put it in an email to Webnewser, they are still in the game:

“The usanetwork.com site is not only the place where USA brings its fictional characters to life, but where USA can fulfill its brand promise to celebrate the equally important characters at home – its fans. Show Us Your Character was USA’s first step in creating fan and affinity communities by allowing users to upload pictures, videos and profiles. USA is in the process of creating more robust communities by integrating Web 2.0 social networking tools and allowing its fans to not only interact with one another, but to become content generators for the site overall. USA’s long-term strategy is to become more than an amalgamation of site verticals, but an entertainment destination of its own.”

USA Network’s character-driven approach is sure to be bolstered by Dick Wolfe’s “Law and Order,” a heavily character-driven program. “We are thrilled to be part of such an incredible brand with L&O now a first run original to USA.  This is a perfect addition to our Characters Welcome roster and will most certainly be an added bonus to our Fall line up.”

Fred Wilson is Bullish on Facebook

(image via unionsquareventures)

Oftentimes it seems social networking “It” sites have a half-life of a week. In the past few years we have been through Friendster, then MySpace, and we are in the middle of a Facebook rennaisance. Jason Calacanis — Silicon Alley 1.0 avatar — is already declaring Facebook so over; Vanture Capitalist Fred Wilson — another Alley 1.0 Master of the Universe — begs to differ. From Fred’s blog:

” …it was with mixed feelings that I read Jason Calacanis’ post declaring Facebook bankruptcy. Jason’s as media savvy as they come, particularly new media. So he knows exactly what he’s doing with that post. He’s drawing attention to the problems with Facebook that have gotten glossed over as the techcrunch 50,000 have fallen in love with Facebook in the wake of the opening up of the service.

“…I differ from Jason. I’m not giving up. Because I think Facebook’s an important phenomenon, maybe as important as Google over time. That’s a big maybe, but you have to pay attention to maybes.”

Bits and Bytes

>Scott Gilbertson of Wired reports that “Google could be rolling out some form of copyright detection for YouTube as early as next month. The release timeline comes from a Google attorney who is defending the company against Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube. In a pretrial hearing Google’s attorney told the judge that the company was working ‘very intensely’ on a video recognition technology and hoped to release it sometime in September.” (Monkeybites)

>AP reports (via Forbes): “Newspaper publisher New York Times Co. said Monday it will collaborate with NBC News/msnbc.com on 2008 presidential election coverage. The agreement will allow New York Times to use NBC’s political videos on its NYTimes.com Web site, while Msnbc.com will be able to use national political content from NYTimes.com on its site.” (AP via Forbes)

>From Steve Donohue of Multichannel: “Cablevision Systems said it plans to launch a video-on-demand channel programmed by CNET Tuesday.The VOD channel, CNET TV-Powered by Optimum, is available at no additional charge to Cablevision’s iO: Interactive Optimum digital-cable subscribers.” (Multichannel)

From Jack Coyle of AP via MercuryNews: “To commemorate ‘OK Computer,’ the music blog Stereogum.com commissioned a full cover album: ‘OKX: A Tribute to OK Computer,’ (http://www.stereogum.com/okx). The site turned to a dozen indie acts and buzzed-about artists—the sort of bands the site likes to hype—to put their spin on the album’s 12 tracks. Among them are Cold War Kids, My Brightest Diamond, Twilight Sad, John Vanderslice, David Bazan and others.” (Merc via AP)

>Brad Stone of NYT reports: “Facebook, the online social network, has stolen some of MySpace’s momentum with users and the news media. Now, it is being subjected to the same accusations that it does not do enough to keep sexual predators off its site. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut’s attorney general, said that investigators in his state were looking into ‘three or more” cases of convicted sex offenders who had registered on Facebook and had ‘also found inappropriate images and content’ on the service.’” (NYT)

>From GameDaily via HollywoodReporter “Video game maker Take-Two Interactive Software has revealed in a regulatory filing that it has amended an agreement with ZelnickMedia Corp., the media firm of Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick that provides financial and management consulting services to the company.”(GameDaily)

Properly Mourning Silicon Alley 1.0

link via 1938Media

Bits and Bytes

>Scott Gilbertson of Wired reports that “Google could be rolling out some form of copyright detection for YouTube as early as next month. The release timeline comes from a Google attorney who is defending the company against Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube. In a pretrial hearing Google’s attorney told the judge that the company was working ‘very intensely’ on a video recognition technology and hoped to release it sometime in September.” (Monkeybites)

>AP reports (via Forbes): “Newspaper publisher New York Times Co. said Monday it will collaborate with NBC News/msnbc.com on 2008 presidential election coverage. The agreement will allow New York Times to use NBC’s political videos on its NYTimes.com Web site, while Msnbc.com will be able to use national political content from NYTimes.com on its site.” (AP via Forbes)

From Jack Coyle of AP via MercuryNews: “To commemorate ‘OK Computer,’ the music blog Stereogum.com commissioned a full cover album: ‘OKX: A Tribute to OK Computer,’ (http://www.stereogum.com/okx). The site turned to a dozen indie acts and buzzed-about artists—the sort of bands the site likes to hype—to put their spin on the album’s 12 tracks. Among them are Cold War Kids, My Brightest Diamond, Twilight Sad, John Vanderslice, David Bazan and others.” (Merc via AP)

>Brad Stone of NYT reports: “Facebook, the online social network, has stolen some of MySpace’s momentum with users and the news media. Now, it is being subjected to the same accusations that it does not do enough to keep sexual predators off its site. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut’s attorney general, said that investigators in his state were looking into ‘three or more” cases of convicted sex offenders who had registered on Facebook and had ‘also found inappropriate images and content’ on the service.’” (NYT)

>From GameDaily via HollywoodReporter “Video game maker Take-Two Interactive Software has revealed in a regulatory filing that it has amended an agreement with ZelnickMedia Corp., the media firm of Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick that provides financial and management consulting services to the company.”

Daily Candy Wins LA Fashion Award

Daily Candy, LA (I bet you didn’t know there was such a thing) is the Fashion Communication Award Winner at the LA Fashion Awards at the Standard Hotel in West Hollywood yesterday. other winners include: BCBGMAXAZRIA, for the Marketing Excellence Award Nominee and Project Runway was the Inspiration Award Winner. Congrats to Dani Levy (And we didn’t even mention the $130 million valuation).

WSJ: “This is embarrassing for Mr. Diller”

The credit crisis struck media mogul Barry Diller, forcing him to scale back his upcoming 116.7 million share buyout, sending shares of Expedia reeling earlier in the week. From Tuesday’s WSJ:

“When Expedia announced its $3.5 billion share-repurchase plan last month, it sure looked like an overpriced leveraged buyout in disguise. While the deal may have been dressed up as a shareholder-friendly buyback, it clearly depended on the kindness of lenders. But it took the travel Web site’s bankers some time to figure all that out. Now, five weeks after they agreed to back Chairman Barry Diller’s plan to take control of Expedia by launching a buyback of 42% of the stock, the company has scaled the deal back to 9%. Expedia said it couldn’t reach acceptable terms with its lenders.

“This is embarrassing for Mr. Diller.”

TheStreet.com’s Revenues Rise Slightly

From TheStreet.com: “’Over the next few months, there is just a huge amount of money to be made owning technology stocks … and I don’t want you sitting on the sidelines,’ Jim Cramer told viewers of his ‘Mad Money’ TV show Wednesday.” The hyperkinetic Cramer could have been talking about TheStreet, which reported slightly higher second quarter profits.  The Associated Press reports (via Forbes): “Not counting stock-compensation expenses of $500,000, the company said net income rose to 14 cents per share from 13 cents a year ago. TheStreet.com said revenue rose in each of its three categories: subscription, advertising and other, which primarily includes syndication revenue. Advertising revenue rose by nearly half, and syndication revenue almost tripled.”

 

Jeff Gaspin to Oversee NBC Uni’s Cable to Online Strategy

Jeff Gaspin, who gave us VH1’s “Behind the Music,” has been picked to as prexy and COO of NBC Universal Television Group, overseeing their digital distribution. “My focus will be on the strategy and building new business models for all of these platforms,” Gaspin told the LATimes. Gaspin was named the first president of NBC Universal Cable and Digital Content in February.