Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, which are in a pay dispute with Hollywood television writers over online video advertising, will generate $120 million of revenues in 2007 from free Web streaming, according to media buyer Starcom. “Desperate Housewives” and “Heroes” are “big Web hits.” (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/49e3d7a8-9e1c-11dc-9f68-0000779fd2ac.html 11/29)

Republican candidates faced off in their first-ever CNN/YouTube debate Wednesday, addressing user-submitted questions on taxes, the Bible and gun control. CNN’s staff viewed nearly 5,000 videos for the GOP debate — about 2,000 more than they saw for the Democrats’ debate. (http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/28/debate.main/index.html 11/29)

In the wake of mounting criticism, Facebook execs are discussing changes to a controversial advertising tool that publicizes users’ Web activities outside of the popular social network. Alterations to the recently introduced Beacon system could be announced as early as today. (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2007/tc20071128_366355.htm  11/28)

Walt Disney has formalized some of the M&A functions to accelerate its position in the digital media space, and has formed a group headed by Kevin Mayer, the EVP of Corp Dev at Disney. Techcrunch reported on it first here and we have confirmed some more details. The group includes VPs Leigh Zarelli and Matt Pillar, working with Mayer. (http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-disney-formalizes-digital-ma-group-looking-at-sub-20-million-deals-outs  11/28)

AOL is flooding the Web with dozens of new and updated Web sites — TMZ, Bluestring, Truveo — many of which do not even bear its famous name, in an attempt to expand its network and reach people wherever they may be. The AOL brand “is no longer as important as it once was.” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/28/AR2007112802286.html 11/29)

While online video has had a place on most of the 150 websites behind Gannett’s over the past few years, the company has found it difficult to seamlessly organize, distribute and, most important, make money from it. The McLean, Va.-based media company thinks it has a solution: form an online video network that will allow it to manage content from its various U.S. properties-85 newspapers, including USA Today, and 23 TV stations-more easily. The increased scale from a single video pipeline is also intended to make Gannett’s videos more attractive to advertisers and lead to wider distribution via syndication deals. (http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-gannett-preps-online-video-network-to-streamline-content-ads-syndicatio  11/28)

With rumors flying about a possible sale of LinkedIn to News Corp., Dan Nye, CEO of the professional social networking site, told Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky that he remains committed to “go long.” He didn’t deny that a buyout offer had been made, just that it would take a “heckuva lot”-well more than $1 billion-for the company to agree to a sale. Of course, you wouldn’t really expect Nye to say anything else, even if the company were deep in talks. Meanwhile, says Nye, the company has 200 employees, nearly 17 million members-up from 9 million when he came on board in February, and expects $75 million - $100 million in revenue next year. (http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-linkedin-ceo-coy-on-sale-1-billion-not-enough  11/28)

The desire for greater control over how Google, Yahoo and other search engines index and display news from other Web sites is driving an effort to revise a 13-year-old technology for restricting access. A new proposal will be unveiled Thursday at the Associated Press. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071129/ap_on_hi_te/search_engine_access 11/29)

Yahoo is powering a new ad product for Adobe PDF, a beta service for publishers launching overnight. (It’s literally called “Ads for Adobe PDF Powered by Yahoo!”) The idea: offer publishers the chance to include contextual, text-based ads next to PDF-based content and give advertisers in Yahoo’s network a new channel with a web-like ability to track ad metrics. For readers, it could open access to PDF-based content that has been limited to paid subscribers. (http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-adobe-yahoo-pair-up-for-pdf-ads-launch-beta  11/28)

Planned debt offerings from EMI and Warner Music Group will have to wait. FT reports that the companies had been looking to raise cash in order to pay investors, refinance debt and fund operations, but a combination of macro conditions and industry-specific difficulties makes it very unlikely. It’s not clear to what extent EMI’s stated plans to aggressively ramp its digital business is contingent on it raising more capital, but something will have to give. Tomorrow’s earnings report from WMG should provide greater visibility into its capital condition. (http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-as-capital-dries-up-emi-looking-to-cut-funding-of-trade-groups-report  11/28)

Blockbuster launched a Facebook app called MovieClique allowing users to search for movies, rate and review them and create viewing lists to share with friends. Story, cast and production information appear with each profile created. The rental chain is also in talks with mobile carriers to launch a mobile phone viewing application, according to comments made by CEO James Keyes at the Reuters Media Summit.

Cool application but it’s been done several times already in Facebook.

Hearst-Argyle Television struck an agreement with Google to give its 30+ local station sites the right to resell Google AdWords to small and medium sized businesses within their local markets. The company will share in the per-click through revenue generated from traffic initiating from its sites. Local search is one of the fastest growing segments of internet advertising, expected to climb from $1.9 billion in 2007 to $9.3 billion in 2010 according to Yankee Group estimates.

A month after acquiring Webshots from CNET, American Greeting is making a second buy in the online photo space: OTCBB-traded PhotoWorks for $26.5 million. (http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-american-greetings-acquiring-photoworks-second-online-photo-buy  11/28)