Death of a Threat: Netflix CEO Joins Facebook Board… It Matters (NFLX)

Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) was under some worries before when Facebook announced that it was going to get into video delivery of selected movies.  In a SWOT analysis, the Facebook issue always fell under the O and the T as opportunity and threat alike.  This no longer appears to be a threat.  Facebook has announced today that Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix will join the Facebook board of directors.

MarketWatch has a full backgrounder on the news here.  Facebook is obviously gearing up its team for an upcoming IPO.  It is one of our Top 17 IPOs To Watch in 2011.

Why this matters is complex, yet simple enough.  There was a thought that it is only natural for Facebook to get into digital distribution of films.  The outfit has even announced some limited streaming deals already.

If Facebook wanted to get deep into the video distribution business, it has hundreds of millions accounts already.  The movie studios have already shown over and that they are all just about willing to take the arms-dealer business model and deal with anyone who will pay under a contract to deliver movies.

The only real difference is over who gets the new releases first.  For Facebook to get into the video delivery business, all it has to do is to buy more bandwidth.  Still, partnering with Netflix is a no-cost or low-cost solution that could come with extremely high margins.

June 25, 2011
Categories: News you can Use, Technologies, Vendor News . Tags: , , . Author: MyMotorways . Comments: Leave a comment

Taco Bell’s behavioral puzzle – “We haven’t even been able to give away the food, never mind figure out how to sell it online”

Speaking to a group of Northwestern University marketing students, Yum! Brands Chief Public Affairs Officer Jonathan Blum shared the story of recent Taco Bell promotion flop that shows the difficulty the chain has had turning social media into a viable business model. Said Blum: “We haven’t even been able to give away the food, never mind figure out how to sell it online.”

Over the course of a year, the number of friends on Taco Bell’s Facebook page rocketed from 500,000 to 6 million fans. Sounds great. Then, in the middle of an ongoing unflattering lawsuit about the quality of its beef, Taco Bell decided to offer those 6 million fans a free taco — no strings attached. They didn’t need to buy anything. They were already Facebook fans, which means they had already paid the very minor costs of “liking” Taco Bell. It was an offer from a company that Blum says wanted to tell its fans, hey, come and get a free taco.

Two hundred thousand people did. Almost 97 percent on passed on free grub they supposedly “liked.”

Cases like that explain why the bulk of Taco Bell’s marketing budget goes to television (and some radio) ads. Social media remains a small part of the budget because the company hasn’t figured out how, in Blum’s words, to use it to “make the cash register ring.”

June 23, 2011
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Inside Facebook’s Next Billion Dollar Business

Facebook’s road to becoming a $100 billion company is to infect every sector of the internet with its social graph, letting other companies build and expand their business on top of it and taking a toll in exchange for that.

Facebook is now number one in display advertising, which is a $2 billion business for them.

Facebook is the enabler of social games, which is now a multibillion dollar industry, and takes a cut through advertising and credits.

Facebook is staffing up and partnering with Amazon to drive commerce through Facebook.

But the next big endeavor is music, Giga Om says in a report revealing Facebook’s upcoming big social music service.

Here’s how it will look, according to Giga Om: your Facebook homepage will include a Music tab leading to a Music Dashboard where you will be able to listen to music and see what music your friends are listening to.

Facebook will partner with Spotify but also other services to provide the service. There have long been talks of some kind of big partnership between Spotify and Facebook when it launches in the US, but it seems that it’s only a small part of a much broader endeavor to build a huge social music service.

The goal is to do for music what it did for games: use its social graph to help Facebook users discover music and help music startups get users.

At eG8 Forum, Mark Zuckerberg said he thought the next industry to get disrupted by social, after games, would be music, and then movies.

It’s not clear if and how Facebook can make money directly from music. Facebook can take a 30% cut off social games because virtual goods have zero marginal costs. By contrast songs streamed over the internet (at least legally) have high licensing costs; indeed, most internet streaming businesses have unprofitable unit economics. It doesn’t seem likely that internet music startups can afford to pay yet another tollmaster.

However, a music dashboard would get Facebook users to stay on Facebook.com all through the day if that’s where they stream music from, and so they would see a lot more ads.

Also, it’s a nice swipe at Apple if their music service ends up rocking and being really good, given how undewhelming Apple’s own social music service Ping has been. The rivalry between Apple and Facebook is heating up in a big way with Apple integrating Twitter deeply into iOS and Facebook trying to bypass Apple’s app store with an app platform based on HTML5.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-social-music-2011-6#ixzz1PuM8YvF5

June 22, 2011
Categories: Technologies, Vendor News . Tags: , , , , . Author: MyMotorways . Comments: Leave a comment

American Idol Season 11 Audition Schedule

American Idol, television’s No. 1 show, begins its 11th nationwide search for the best undiscovered talent in the country in St. Louis, MO on Tuesday, June 28. The search for the next singing superstar continues in Portland, OR, on Saturday, July 2; San Diego, CA, on Friday, July 8; Pittsburgh, PA, on Friday, July 15; Charleston, SC, on Friday, July 22; Denver, CO, on Friday, July 29; and Houston, TX, on Friday, Aug. 26.

American Idol auditions will be held as follows:

 

  • St. Louis, MO – Tuesday, June 28 – Scottrade Center

 

Portland, OR – Saturday, July 2 – Rose Garden

San Diego, CA – Friday, July 8 -Petco Park

Pittsburgh, PA – Friday, July 15 – Heinz Field

Charleston, SC – Friday, July 22 – North Charleston Coliseum

Denver, CO – Friday, July 29 – INVESCO Field at Mile High

Houston, TX – Friday, Aug. 26 – Reliant Park

Full details regarding the St. Louis auditions are below. Specific information on the subsequent audition cities will be announced shortly.

June 21, 2011
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Samuel L. Jackson Talks The Avengers Script Leak

It has been widely publicized that Samuel L. Jackson had his The Avengers shooting script stolen and latersold on the black market.

Today, Samuel L. Jackson has come forward to talk about how the theft actually occurred, and how he was scolded by Walt Disney and Marvel Studios for letting this happen.

This is what Samuel L. ackson had to say about the notorious incident.Samuel Jackson talks The Avengers script leak

“When they sent me the new version of the script, I was shooting a film in Toronto (Canada) and my assistant copied it from the email (and printed it) in the office somewhere. And by the time we got to Albuquerque someone had stolen the script out of the printer and put it online for sale. I didn’t know printers had memories. And apparently my assistant didn’t either. Marvel/Disney kind of got really upset about it. It caused a minor storm of investigation. They sent a team of investigators to Canada. They were trying to find (track down) the IP address of the person that put it online. It was crazy.”

No one has been arrested in the theft of Samuel L. Jackson‘s script. Neither Marvel nor Disney have ever made any official comments in regards to this infamous incident.

The Avengers comes to theaters May 4th, 2012 and stars Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, Clark Gregg, Tom Hiddleston. The film is directed by Joss Whedon.

June 21, 2011
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Tom Cruise New Look

By MIKE FLEMING | Friday June 17, 2011 @ 7:25pm PDTTags: Tom Cruise in Rock Of Ages, Tom Cruise Stacee Jaxx
Mike FlemingHere’s Tom Cruise in tats and gear as Stacee Jaxx, the 1980s rock star who’s a major player in Adam Shankman’s musical Rock Of Ages for New Line. Cruise belts out tunes like Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead Or Alive” as part of the cast that includes Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, Mary J. Blige, Paul Giamatti, Malin Akerman, Bryan Cranston, Diego Boneta, and Julianne Hough:

 

 

June 20, 2011
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Footloose Photo Featuring Kenny Wormald and Julianne Hough

A new photo has debuted from the Paramount Pictures remakeFootloose, which arrives in theaters nationwide on October 14. Click on the photo below, which features Kenny Wormald and Julianne Hough, to access our gallery. Read on below the photo for news on when the first trailer will debut.

 

Footloose Photo

 

The first Footloose trailer will debut on Tuesday, June 21, so be sure to check back then for the first look at footage from director Craig Brewer‘s dance remake.

Footloose comes to theaters October 14th, 2011 and stars Kenny Wormald, Julianne Hough, Dennis Quaid,Miles Teller, Andie MacDowell. The film is directed by Craig Brewer.

June 17, 2011
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Pam-Am Trailer – Retro

Very “Retro” Promo for new “Pan-Am” series on ABC..

 

Can you say, “Mad Men” ripoff?

June 9, 2011
Categories: Inside Hollywood, News you can Use . Tags: , , , , . Author: MyMotorways . Comments: Leave a comment

Digital Theft Facts

Interesting facts regarding illegal downloads that effect Hollywood

1) 23.8% of all Global Internet traffic involves digital theft of copyrighted work.

2) The United States has the distinction of being number 1 in illegal downloads

3) Avatar has been illegally downloaded more than 16,580,000 times (and counting), making it the most pirated film in 2010

4) 95% of all Online Music downloads are illegal.

5) In 2010, Lady Gaga music was the most downloaded and Britney Spear’s “Telephone” was the number 1 most illegally downloaded track.

6) Movie piracy on the Black Market is valued at  25 Billion dollars and climbing

7) Legit DVD Sales of movies have declined by 27% since 2004

May 19, 2011
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Pirates of the Caribbean Film Factoids

Came across the following facts regarding the new Disney film, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, which hits theaters on May 20th

1) Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest was the first film to hit the $100 Million mark in TWO days at the US box office

johnny-depp.jpg

2) Prior to Pirates, Johnny Depp had starred in only one movie that topped the $100 Million mark in in the US.  That film was Sleepy Hallow

3) Depp’s reported $59.2 Million paycheck for On Stranger Tides beats Tom Hank’s check for Angel and Demons making him the highest paid actor ever.

4)Of all the  Trilogy film Series –  Lord of the Rings at $2.9 Billion is first, – Pirate films snagged a global booty of $2.68 BILLION at the Box Office, and The Matrix trilogy at $1.6 Billion was third.

May 18, 2011
Categories: Inside Hollywood . Tags: , , , . Author: MyMotorways . Comments: Leave a comment

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