Today’s Bytes

Posted by ad on Mar 21, 2011 in Around the Net | 0 comments

Report: CBS, Warner Brothers Want Charlie Sheen Back (ABC News)

After weeks listening to him rant and rave, after he slapped them with a $100 million lawsuit, could CBS and Warner Bros. actually want Charlie Sheen back?

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Short and to the point, ‘Twitter: a five year history in 140 characters’ (Marketing Week)

Since its first ever tweet by co-founder Jack Dorsey in 2006 (“Just setting up my twttr”) the micro-blogging website has grown to become one of the most important online marketing and communications tools of a generation – that many people would say is second only to Facebook.

It now hosts more than 1 billion tweets a week and is estimated to be worth around $10bn.

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2011-2012 Upfront Schedule (AdWeek)

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Netflix Original Content Is Much More Than A Strategy Shift – It Could Shift An Industry’ (TechCrunch)

Three years ago, if you had asked people to choose between cable television and Netflix, the vast majority would have laughed at you. A DVD-by-mail service versus thousands of pieces of content always at your fingertips?

No one is laughing anymore.

Netflix has confirmed that they intend to pay for House of Cards a new show being produced by David Fincher (yes, he of Fight Club, The Social Network, etc) and starring Kevin Spacey (yes, he of The Usual Suspects, American Beauty, etc). Netflix is not paying for the full production of it, but instead they’re paying for the first-rights access to air it. In other words, they get the first “window” to show it to viewers.

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Great programming always wins, ‘Analyst Predicts Modes HBO Subscriber Decline Amid Challenges from Netflix’ (Hollywood Reporter)

Barclays Capital analyst Anthony DiClemente expects “modest” subscriber declines for Time Warner’s HBO ahead amid Netflix’s continued growth and other competing options for consumers’ attention.

In a report entitled “Can HBO Avoid True Blood?,” he said on Friday that “substitution threats to HBO gather momentum.” Meanwhile, Netflix itself is also facing new challengers. The new issue of The Hollywood Reporter analyzes how the assault on Netflix will shake out.

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Don’t let it be 2012 as some suggest, ‘T-Mobile admits 4G LTE iPhone coming to AT&T, T-Mobile & Verizon’ (Beatweek Magazine)

It’s all in the wording. The impossibly overhyphenated AT&T-T-Mobile merger has customers of the former thinking that it could send 4G networking their way sooner, while suddenly spun-around customers of the latter are left thinking “Well, at least maybe now we’ll get the iPhone 5 out of it” or even “Good thing Verizon will also have the iPhone 5, since I’m not sticking around and getting pulled into the realm of AT&T.” For its part, T-Mobile has explicitly said that yes, its customers (meaning all post-merger customers) will have access to 4G LTE, and more or less straightforwardly admitted that the merger took place so that AT&T could get a nationwide 4G network in place more quickly; at present, AT&T is placing fourth out of four in that race. But the wording is vaguer when it comes to the prospect of a T-Mobile iPhone 5, with a sudden shift toward vaguer language in which the company unintentionally admits it’ll get the iPhone eventually.

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Twitter Turns 5, goes from 0 to 140 million tweets a day (CNN Money)

Five years ago today, Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey blasted off the very first tweet. What began as an experiment in “microblogging” — no more than 140 characters, please — has become a cultural landmark.

Twitter now has 200 million users, including tech luminaries, celebrities and the president of the United States. It started off slowly: In 2007, Twitter averaged just 5,000 tweets per day. But in 2009, the site hit a tipping point and became a broadcast channel for major news events.

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Makin’ music together, ‘Apple, Bjork, #iTunes — changing music one app at a time’ (ComputerWorld)

Despite Bon Jovi’s moaning, Apple [AAPL] and its iTunes Store saved the music business. When it launched music had no popular online music store while audiences had already moved online. Now digital music is changing again. Music delivery is moving away from albums and toward Apps. This is already happening with Icelandic chanteuse, Bjork, preparing to unleash her new album/App this summer.

iTunes Extras. Originally presented as a way to boost album sales, the format is cumbersome and hasn’t really set the world on fire. Just under two years old it already seems dated. In the fast-moving iOS universe, the App is where it’s at.

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#2 in online video rankings (Comscore), ‘Microsoft Bing’s Secret Weapon – Online Video’ (ComputerWorld)

YouTube may be the reigning king of online video, but Microsoft, very quietly, has jumped to the number 2 spot in online video watching, leaping from number 7 to number 2 in a single month. It’s now ahead of many rivals, including Hulu, Yahoo, Turner, AOL, and others.

In Comscore’s latest set of online video rankings, for February, YouTube retains its immense lead over everyone else with 141.1 million unique viewers. And it’s not just that it has far more viewers than everyone else — people also spend more time on average on YouTube then they spend on the competition, an astonishing 261.6 minutes per month, nearly 4.5 hours.

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On the heels of Netflix deal, original programming gets a digital only platform option, ‘Web Shows Get Ambitious’ (Wall Street Journal)

Technology and media companies are racing to create Internet-video hits closer to the scale of traditional TV, as consumers start to watch more video on Internet-connected televisions and tablet computers.

Netflix Inc. on Friday made the most expensive entry in the gold rush, saying it had cut a deal to produce a new drama starring Oscar winner Kevin Spacey on its Internet service. But companies like Yahoo Inc., AOL Inc. and Hulu LLC are also ramping up their efforts to secure original Web productions, investing more dollars in Web shows.

 

Days of Double Digit Growth in Social Network Users Are Over (eMarketer)

Social networking now reaches most internet users in the US and has become an integral part of their lives. Thanks to the rapid growth of Facebook, updating status, posting comments and sharing links with friends have become routine activities for millions of people.