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New Media News Every Morning

NBC brings Quarterlife to TV

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new media newsQuarterlife, an online drama series and social networking site for artists, thinkers, and doers, will make a controversial jump from Web to TV starting next year.

NBC has inked a distribution deal to air Quarterlife on TV. The deal also gives NBC the right to air the show on the Internet as well as on DVD.

Quarterlife has made its debut on MyspaceTV.com on November 11, 2007 and will soon be available in other video-sharing sites like YouTube.com and Facebook. Each Quarterlife webisode is about eight minutes long. All 36 eight-minute episodes will be combined to make an hourlong TV show.

While this is indeed a positive development for the aspiring writers and movie makers in the online community, this will be a stumbling block for the TV and film writers who are on strike.

If the strike continues, other TV networks will also be tempted to search the Internet for entertaining contents to keep its business afloat. This can weaken the position of those writers to get better remuneration.

Originally posted on November 19, 2007 @ 11:32 am

TurnHere expands Bookvideos.tv channel, launches multi-publisher video network

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bookvideos.pngTurnHere announced the launch of the multi-publisher book-centric network, Bookvideos.tv. The site will feature videos from leading publishing houses including Bantam Dell, Chronicle, Disney (Hyperion), Doubleday Broadway, Hachette Book Group, Loyola Press, MacMillan, Simon & Schuster, Thomas Nelson and WW Norton. Together with the publishers, TurnHere will produce videos that tell the stories behind bestselling books and their authors, in addition to offering previews of anticipated new titles. The video network will be syndicated on YouTube as well as numerous video portals across the Web.

With the expanded Bookvideos.tv platform, publishers will be able to cross market their books and link to major retailers across the Internet to maximize readership and audience loyalty. Viewers will be able to learn about an author or see a preview of a book and then share or discuss it with friends, add it to popular social networks, and easily purchase it from one of several popular online destinations. TurnHere will also post the two-minute videos to the company’s branded YouTube channel.


Originally posted on November 19, 2007 @ 1:48 pm

AOL introduces video ticker ads

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aol.pngAOL announced the availability of video ticker ads, a new interactive video advertising solution that serves as a creative alternative to pre-roll ads that was developed in conjunction with PointRoll, the leading provider of rich media technology solutions.

AOL’s video ticker ad is a graphic banner ad that is integrated within a streaming video, but without obstructing the video viewing experience. When clicked on by a consumer, the ticker expands to launch a video ad, or an interactive Flash ad, within the video player window. These ads will run across the AOL Network of premium video content within the newest version of the AOL Video media player platform.

Also released with the video ticker ads is a newly revamped media player platform which introduces several new and improved features, including:

• A single flexible experience: Sharing and social utilities – such as email, bookmarking and related videos – are available from the player view port;

• Multiple monetization options: New ad inventory includes 300 x 250 interstitials, video ticker ads and synched text ads;

• A new user interface and development framework: The new UI streamlines the control set and improves customization options, while the new development framework simplifies adding new features.

Originally posted on November 19, 2007 @ 8:36 am

Piczo expands to Russia

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piczo.pngPiczo announced its global expansion into Russia, one of the fastest growing social networking regions globally, with the launch of Piczo Russia.

The launch into the Russian market is part of Piczo’s international growth strategy which has already seen exponential growth in Germany to over 2 million unique users today, up six-fold since September 2006. Recent launches into new markets have enabled Piczo to build on its position as the top destination for 13-18 year-olds with over 28 million registered users globally.

Piczo is already well established across Eastern Europe, where it now has over 850,000 unique users accessing the site with more than 65 million page views a month.

Piczo’s focus on privacy and control has been an important product differentiator since the site’s creation. As Piczo users cannot search for others through the network, groups are formed more like a private party, with growth happening virally and through word of mouth.

Originally posted on November 16, 2007 @ 11:43 am

Social network Going.com starts selling tickets

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new media newsGoing.com, a social networking site where users can find all the events around town as well as people going to those events, has added a new service allowing users to buy event tickets on its site.

The concert of Moby in New York is the first ticket event for Going.com. While there are many online ticketing sites in the market like Ticketmaster.com, this new service is somewhat different for it will sell event tickets not commonly available in the traditional outlets.

“Ticketing was the last-mile solution for the 300,000 local monthly RSVPs that occur on our site. Our goal was to connect the long tail of promoters with event-seeking audiences,” Going.com CEO and founder Evan Schumacher said in a statement.

Majority of events featured in Going.com are in Boston, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Soon it will cover events in Atlanta and Miami. Ten more cities will be covered next year.

Originally posted on November 17, 2007 @ 2:34 pm