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Amazon Acquires Amie Street's Music Service
Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) is acquiring online indie music shop Amie Street and will absorb all of the site’s members and services, the company said in a note to subscribers this morning. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. Amie Street has counted Amazon as n early investor and advisor. In a message to its members, as September 22, all AmieStreet.com pages will be forwarded to Amazon.com; users will no longer be able to use AmieStreet.com or any of its services.
Current Amie Street users will get a $5 discount on new purchases once the transfer to Amazon is complete. The discount code is good through December 1. However, Amazon will not recognize any credits that Amie Street users have in their balances after the shift is made, so members are told to spend whatever balance they have in their accounts.
Amazon led Amie Street’s first round funding a little over three years ago, just ahead of when the online retail giant started its own music store. That investment was undisclosed. Last October, Amie Street raised a $3.9 million funding round ed by Deep Fork Capital.
In handing off Amie Street’s online store to Amazon, which use it to buttress its existing download music services, the four-year-old company itself will remain independent. Instead, Amie Street’s founders plan to concentrate on social music streaming service, Songza.com. The streaming service is currently in beta, but already claims about 8 million songs that allows users to create personalized online radio stations. The plan is to make Songza more like Foursquare, with the addition of props, badges, and song check-ins.
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MirriAd Raises More Money For Digital TV Product Placement Take-Off
Guildford, Surrey-based MirriAd, which uses its technology to digitally add product placement in movies, video, games and DVDs, is keeping up a pattern of needing to raise funding every year.
It says it’s taking an unspecified amount led by Oxford Capital Partners and STV, together with previous venture capital firms and individual backers.
At the same time, it’s appointing former Endemol exec Peter Bazalgette as chairman; Baz is already on several digital media boards it’s not stated whether he is among MirriAd’s investors.
MirriAd has worked with movie studios to embed brands in scenes in post-production, and and has latterly developed a tool, Videosense, to do the same for other videos, including web videos.
But it’s the growing relaxation of TV product placement rules around Europe, including the UK, that is set to mean a big opening in this sector in the next few years, meaning MirriAd could take off in its home market.
The company has already developed a trial for ITV (LSE: ITV) in which it places custom ads on billboards inside Coronation Street.
Ads can be customised depending on the audience market. See how it works in the video below…
MirriAd took a £2 ($3.07) million first round in 2007, an equal amount in October 2008, then a £1.5 ($2.29) million grant in January 2009 before this latest investment.
ESPN Names Sony's Hair To Head EMEA Ops
ESPN (NYSE: DIS) is hiring Sony (NYSE: SNE) Pictures Television exec Ross Hair to replace Lynne Frank as its MD for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), paidContent:UK understands.
Frank’s exit, returning home to California for personal reasons, was announced in April.
ESPN is on a big growth curve in Europe, snapping up many TV and some VOD rights, particularly for England’s soccer Premier League.
It’s not yet clear when Hair will join, but it’s understood ESPN International EVP Russell Wolff will oversee operations.
At Sony Pictures Television, Hair is international networks EVP for the same EMEA region.
Previously, he had been ESPN Star Sports’ strategic planning director in Singapore and an executive at Nickelodeon UK and BSkyB.
In-Flight Wireless Company Row 44 Raises $37 Million
A second startup hoping to cash in on the the growing popularity of in-flight internet access has raised a big round. Row 44, which is in the process of outfitting all of Southwest Airlines’ planes with WiFi access, has raised $37 million in a round of funding, we have confirmed. The investment, which was first reported by the LA Times, comes eight months after Row 44’s main rival, Aircell, which is behind the GoGo inflight wireless service, raised its own huge $175 million round.
In-flight WiFi is taking off in the U.S., disrupting one of the last markets where print media might have had an advantage over digital competition. According to a recent report, revenue from in-flight broadband access is expected to reach $95 million this year, up from $7 million in 2009. So far, Aircell’s GoGo has dominated the market through deals with American Airlines, United, Delta, and U.S. Airways, among others. Row 44 says it plans to use its new cash to expand abroad.
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Slim doesn't plan to increase his stake in NYT, says spokesman
Times shares rose as much as 8 percent today on renewed speculation that Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim was either looking to buy or raise his stake in the company. He currently owns about 7 percent of NYT's s class A shares. || Editors Weblog: Asked if the Times will kill its print edition in 2015, publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. responded: "We will stop printing the New York Times sometime in the future, date TBD."
Netflix Adds Another Online Streaming Deal
Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) is once again bulking up its online streaming catalog, this time through a deal with action and thriller specialist Nu Image/Millennium Films, which will let Netflix stream its releases during the so-called “pay TV window,” when pay TV channels typically have had exclusive distribution rights.
Nu Image/Millennium Films’ catalog is relatively small; the two companies say Netflix will add 5 to 10 newly released films to its online streaming catalog each year over the course of the agreement, a “few months” after the films come out on DVD.
The deal comes as Netflix has spent heavily this summer to bulk up its catalog in order to drive subscriber growth; CEO Reed Hastings said during the company’s most recent earnings call in July that, “if we find enough content deals where the terms make sense to us, we’ll be spending lots more on streaming content.”
In mid-August, the company announced a major deal with pay TV channel Epix, which will let Netflix stream films from its studio partners 90 days after their premium pay TV and subscription-on-demand debuts elsewhere. Also this summer, Netflix announced an exclusive deal with Relativity Media to stream that studio’s new releases.
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Morgan: Cable news stars 'have increasing gotten self-indulgent'
"They increasingly talk about each other," says Larry King replacement Piers Morgan. "Rachel talking about Bill, Bill talking about Keith, Keith talking about Glenn and Bill. It's all a bit of a laugh ...but I wonder how interesting it is to a bigger audience that is potentially getable. I'm interested in the hundreds of millions of Americans who don't watch cable news at all."
Macworld Rolls Out Tiered Online Subscriptions
Macworld, the magazine and website devoted to all things Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), is launching a range of online subscription products. The various subscription plans fall under the Macworld Insider program. Membership is required for Insider access, with the first level starting at $19.95 a year up to $39.95 annually. With the inability of online ads to offset the declines on the print side, more publishers are trying to find ways of presenting premium content. But aside from that, Macworld is also gearing Insider membership to one of parent IDG’s big moneymakers, the Macworld Expo in January.
Among the benefits of the Insider membership are full access to the magazine’s online archives, full-text RSS feeds of all Macworld content along with a PDF archive of back issues. The archive currently dates back to January 2007 with more back issues to come. In addition, each PDF is a DRM-free file that’s completely searchable via Spotlight and compatible with the iPad.
Subscribers can also get a custom web layout that contains no display advertising. There’s also a subscriber-only forum with “special access” and live chats with the magazine’s editors and other Insider members. And to top it off, there’s a free floor pass to Macworld 2011 San Francisco conference in January.
While the Insider deal is mostly aimed at online readers, the magazine hasn’t forgotten about the print subs. Both print and digital subs get the magazine via Zinio and receive a 50 percent discount on Macworld Insider. Current magazine subscribers and people who sign up for the magazine and Macworld Insider at the same time will receive Macworld Insider for $19.95.
A rep for the mag added that only people who subscribe to Macworld’s digital replica through Zinio are considered digital subscribers in this context.” If the reader subscribes to either the print magazine (with us) or the digital replica (with Zinio) they can get a discount on Insider… they can also get a subscription to either version of the mag with an Insider subscription if they aren’t currently subscribed,” the rep said.
Google Unveils Search Results That Update As Users Type
Google (NSDQ: GOOG) just announced a major update to its search engine, releasing a new feature called Google Instant that automatically shows search results as a user types. During a demonstration this morning, Google VP Marissa Mayer showed how a user could type in a term like “fauv” and immediately Google would show results for “fauvism.” “There’s even a psychic element to it,” she said, explaining that the search engine was already predicting the full-term the user was planning to enter.
A later demo, which generated some “oohs” from the audience, showed how a user could type just the letter “w” and Google would immediately return the weather in their city on the results page, expecting that the user wanted to know what the local weather forecast was.
Mayer said the average search takes 25 seconds, and Google had previously spent most of its effort cutting back on the one second it takes to return results, rather than the 9 seconds people spend on average to enter a search terms or the 15 seconds they typically take selecting results. She said that, on average, “Instant” eliminates two to five seconds from the search process.
The new feature—the latest of several major updates that Google has unveiled this year—is launching in the U.S. today and will launch in the U.K., France, Italy, Germany, Spain and Russia “over the next weeks.” Executives also said the company was working on bringing the feature to mobile phones, which they said would be “especially useful” since people on-the-go are particularly interested in faster results.
It’s already live for me, and here’s what stands out: The whole experience can be somewhat dizzying, since the results page refreshes as you type. The home page experience on Google.com is also extremely different, since immediately when you enter even one single letter, you are immediately sent over to the results page. In fact, there’s no longer a need to click the “search” button on any Google page it seems, since results show up whether you select the button or not.
As several reporters pointed out during the question and answer session, there’s also a much greater emphasis put on the top results that show up, since users can select any of the suggested terms to immediately see updated listings, which is likely a more attractive option than having to scroll through pages of results.
Google executives said there are no changes to the way “we serve and rank ads,” although it’s possible that the way users interact with them might, if they spend less time overall searching and more of the time they do spend on Google focused on the first several results. “We are focused on users and we believe that will be good for our advertisers,” Mayer said. Asked how users had reacted during testing, she said that only “a very small percentage” had selected to turn the feature off.
Here’s Google’s video explaining how Instant works:
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Yahoo Shine Editor Brandon Holley Exits, Returns To Condé Nast
Brandon Holley is leaving Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) after three years to return to the print magazine world as editor-in-chief of Condé Nast’s Lucky. Her official start date is September 20. For the past two years, Holley was the E-i-C and business lead for Yahoo women’s content site Shine.
Holley arrived at Yahoo in Nov. 2007 to begin building up its women-centric content. Back in March, a NYT profile described Holley as loving her job at Shine, but added that she was “wistful” that her new life as “a digital women’s-service journalist is much less glamorous than her old one at Condé Nast’s glossy dream factory.”
Holley had left Condé Nast after the publisher pulled the plug on Jane. Before that, she was noted for helping create Elle Girl for Hachette Filipacchi Media in 2001. At Lucky, Holley replaces Kim France, who is leaving the company.
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New York Times Co. shares up on Slim rumors
Once again, there's speculation that Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim is planning to acquire a bigger stake in the Times. || Slim's spokesman in March: "These rumors are going to be coming and going all the time."
Student E-Reader Startup Kno Raises $46 Million
Kno, which is making an e-reader designed for students, has raised $46 million in additional equity and debt financing. Known until this spring as Kakai, the startup unveiled its device at the AllThingsD conference this year. It has two large side-by-side touchscreen displays and is supposed to be especially useful for note-taking, letting users “write directly on the page,” “highlight,” “add sticky notes,” and “even display two different parts of the book at once,” according to a description on its website.
Kno says the device will be be available for purchase “by late fall.” The company hasn’t said what the device will cost, but CEO Osman Rashid tells TechCrunch it will sell for under $1,000. Rashid is also the co-founder and chairman of textbook rental startup Chegg, which has raised its own big round last fall.
Kno had last raised funding in December, when it raised $7.5 million from a roster of big name investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital and serial angel investor Ron Conway. This funding round was led by Andreessen Horowitz. Silicon Valley Bank and TriplePoint Capital also participated. It brings Kno’s total funding to more than $54 million.
Here’s a slightly over the top video describing the device:
Kno Movie from Kno, Inc. on Vimeo.
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Holley leaves Yahoo to become Lucky editor
Given the web experience Brandon Holley has honed over the past few years, the hiring makes sense for Lucky parent Conde Nast, which is ramping up its digital efforts, writes Joe Pompeo. Holley replaces Kim France.
Gordon McLeod Resigns As President, WSJ Digital
Gordon McLeod is leaving Dow Jones (NSDQ: NWS) effective October 1. The president of the Wall Street Journal Digital network announced his resignation in an internal memo this morning, telling his team: “A lot has changed in the digital world since I joined you four years ago. While I’m extremely proud of the growth in our digital business over that time, I’m now looking forward to exploring new opportunities.”
Reached by phone, McLeod said he didn’t have anything to announce in terms of future plans, adding “I definitely want to keep doing bigger and more business building in digital.”
McLeod is one of two senior DJ execs whose departures went public Tuesday. Ann Sarnoff, president of DJ Ventures since 2006, left to be COO at BBC Worldwide America. Both had survived the acquisition by News Corp. and several reorgs (before and after).
Both reported to Todd Larsen, who has been president of Dow Jones for less than a year. Each headed one of the five business units Larsen established in January. What happens to WSJ Digital? In a staff memo this morning about both departures, Larsen said, “Discussions are under way on leadership for our digital operations going forward.”
As president of WSJ Digital network, McLeod was responsible for the business side of the Journal online, Marketwatch and other digital products. Larsen credits him with “extraordinary growth in audience, revenue and profits” on the digital side and with a “great” business model for mobile. He joined DJ after six years at Time Inc. (NYSE: TWX), where, among other roles, he was GM of Time Inc. Interactive. More to come.
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