Entertainment:
·
Netflix has confirmed that it will launch in Australia/New
Zealand in March 2015
·
Amazon announced that its Fire TV Stick is the
“fastest-selling Amazon device ever,” and is now shipping to customers on a
first-come, first-serve basis
·
Xiaomi and Shunwei Capital have together made a $300MM strategic
investment in iQiyi, the video platform that is majority-owned by Baidu
·
Multipop, which helps brands, marketers, and publishers make
their videos interactive and shoppable, has raised $2MM
·
The WSJ reported last night that next month Nielsen will
begin measuring viewership of programs on Netflix and Amazon
·
Pinewood Pictures, which finances and distributes the media
investments of the Pinewood Studios Group, today announced it has closed a deal
that will see 20th Century Fox book all films on its distribution slate into
cinemas
·
This past Sunday, Fox News Channel's MediaBuzz with Howie
Kurtz delivered its biggest audience since its launch with 1.3 million viewers,
and was the No. 1 cable news program for the day
·
Stephen Colbert is set to host this year's Kennedy Center
Honors
·
The Hasbro/Dreamworks Animation deal talks were sabotaged by
an anonymous letter
·
Netflix has decided to postpone its Bill Cosby special as
the comedian faces multiple accusations of rape
o
http://variety.com/2014/biz/news/netflix-pulls-bill-cosby-special-amid-rape-allegations-1201359886/
·
Justin Timberlake is now a co-owner of the audio technology
company AfterMaster Audio Labs
·
Ticketfly has launched Ticketfly Pulse, which is a mobile
tool that gives easy access to real-time event stats, allowing promoters to
quickly see an event's total tickets sold, tickets sold that day, the number of
available tickets and the event's gross ticket sales
·
Sony’s CFO, Kevin Kelleher, said the company will take a
cautious approach to free, ad-supported streaming services like Spotify
·
Giancarlo Stanton has signed a record-breaking $325MM,
13-year contract to remain with the Miami Marlins
·
Video encoding specialist Sorenson Media has launched an
end-to-end video platform for broadcasters that will enable encoding, storage,
streaming and play-out across all connected devices
Tech:
·
Clarity is a keychain-sized gadget that lets users
constantly track their personal exposure to air pollution via a smartphone app
·
Viber is introducing Public Chats, a new feature that makes
it easier to see what celebrities and public personalities are chatting about
·
On-demand shipping startup Shyp is officially launching in
Miami, and preps for a launch in LA in early 2015
·
Prezi, the cloud presentation platform that competes against
Microsoft’s PowerPoint, is poised to become a far more mainstream product with
a $57MM growth investment and it has passed 50 million users
·
BuzzFeed’s next step is messaging apps, and the company has
teamed up with Tencent to become a media partner on the Chinese firm’s WeChat
app
o
http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/18/buzzfeed-jumps-aboard-the-messaging-app-train-starting-with-wechat/
·
Los Angeles-based ventureLab Growth Partners has launched a
new "startup studio" to invest in and build early stage startups
·
Santa Monica- and Helsinki-based Seriously, a developer of
mobile games, has raised $5MM in additional funding
·
Yesterday, Apple released a new bundle of developer tools
called WatchKit to help make third-party Apple Watch apps, and with it they
announced a new typeface called ‘San Francisco’
o
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3038794/fast-feed/apple-releases-its-most-important-typeface-in-20-years
·
Facebook has rolled out a new Group app, which lets people
with a shared interest engage in sharing which can be public, semi-private, or
extremely private
Deals:
·
Kik, the messaging app, has raised
$38.3M in its Series C and has acquired GIF messenger app Relay
·
Please see below for today’s top
tech funding stories
·
Pluralsight, an online training
platform for technology professionals, has acquired Smarterer for $75MM
·
Koch Industries has agreed to
acquire Oplink Communications, a maker of optical networking components and
subsystems, for $445MM
·
Buyout firms KKR and Clayton,
Dubilier & Rice have teamed up to take PetSmart private for more than $7.5B
Business:
·
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s reluctance to issue
rules on crowdfunding could ultimately be what saves crowdfunding from a
“regulatory death grip”
·
A report stating that a Russian brewer had acquired the
Pabst Brewing Company turned out to be erroneous
·
Goldman Sachs has cemented its position as the top Wall
Street bank for M&A in 2014, as the industry hits one of its busiest years
·
South Korea’s largest telecom firm, KT Corp., is poised to
gain up to 30% next year
Exec Moves:
·
Disney animation execs Andrew
Millstein of Walt Disney Animation Studios and Jim Morris of Pixar Animation
Studios have been promoted to new President posts at their respective studios
o http://deadline.com/2014/11/disney-animation-pixar-andrew-millstein-jim-morris-president-1201288441/
Retail:
Startups:
·
CipherCloud, which provides cloud
information protection solutions for enterprises to encrypt sensitive information
and store them in the cloud, has raised $50MM in its Series B
·
Voter engagement startup, Brigade
Media, announced that eight groups have signed up to use its upcoming social
networking platform as the company gets ready to launch early next year
Government:
·
The U.S. Senate fell one vote short in its attempt to
approve construction of TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline
·
President Obama is expected to make an announcement this
Friday about granting a form of legal status for up to 5 million people in the
United States illegally
Other:
·
Students rally to protest
proposed tuition hikes ahead of UC Regents meeting
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