A new feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.
This week: A video visit with, some questions for and a few pertinent stats about Chris Wetherell and his creation, Brizzly, a Web-based social media reader.
Two seemingly unrelated announcements this week illustrate the intensifying pressure on cable TV’s business model.
On a slow news day, The Wall Street Journal has dusted off the old telco-buys-sat TV company rumors.
In a Heard on the Street piece, The Journal says that the odds of Verizon buying DirecTV could be shortening.
Silicon Valley has been talking for 15 years or so about marrying TV and the Internet. For the most part, it’s still just talk; most people still use their PCs when they want interactivity, and rely on their TVs when they want to be passive content-watchers.
TV Everywhere is a concept put out by TV distributors that basically says that if you pay for cable or satellite, you should be able to watch the content you want, where you want. Everywhere. To some people this is not a good idea.
With journalists being laid off in droves, ideologues have stepped forward to provide the “reporting” that feeds the 24-hour news cycle.
Metacafe, seeking to reach more “media-snacking” consumers, is launching a section of its video site devoted to short clips from “Nurse Jackie,” “Weeds,” “Big Brother” and other television shows.
The Palo Alto, Calif., company, which is funded by Highland Capital Partners and DAG Ventures, focuses on what it sees as a middle ground between YouTube and Hulu — short-form videos that are professionally produced or poised to go viral — said its chief executive, Erick Hachenburg, a former Electronics Arts executive.
Just what, exactly, are all those Hollywood types getting in return for their investment in Barack Obama’s presidential bid?
AT&T and the union representing its workers are still in contract talks, but workers have published a song, with accompanying ringtone, called “Ready to Strike,” just in case.
The song’s pro-labor lyrics include “Get ready to strike, get ready to walk the line” and “Protect my health care, don’t lower my wages/Realize, recognize, mobilize, stay alive” and even a shout-out to technicians who support U-verse, AT&T’s TV service.
As I said in my post last Sunday on Microsoft’s “Laptop Hunter” ads, it’s unrealistic to expect TV commercials to contribute to a thoughtful discussion of anything.
While the very phrase “product placement” elicits jeers and hisses in the TV and movie worlds, on the Web something surprising has been happening: Branded content is emerging as not just a promising way to make money, but as creatively viable as well. Take Ashton Kutcher’s “Blah Girls,” which features sassy teen celebrity-bloggers who pause occasionally to quaff VitaminWater as they chase celebrity dirt.
About 20 years ago people noticed computers and TV were on a collision course and started to speculate about what they’d produce when they converged. We now know the answer: computers.
Walking into Gavin Purcell’s office at 30 Rockefeller Center the first thing you notice is his computer monitor. It’s a 52-inch flat screen mounted to the wall across from his desk. The desktop background is a picture of a Sega Light Phaser. Ladies and gentleman, the co-producer of NBC’s “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon”–debuting Monday–is a geek.
The nation’s switch to all-digital broadcasts has been more than a decade in the making. Until last week, the United States seemed ready to follow the half-dozen European countries that have made the switch. But with two federal agencies in charge, no clear idea of how many people would be affected and constant partisan disagreements over money, the program foundered just before its longstanding Feb. 17 deadline.
Like Napoleon marching into an abandoned Moscow, Larry Page and Sergey Brin have led Google’s advance into traditional advertising only to find nothing to loot. Now begins Google’s long imperial retreat, starting with 40 layoffs. But the real cut here is to Google’s ambitions.
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