Entertainment:
·
Just one month after striking a distribution partnership
with Warner Music Group, Tencent, one of China’s biggest Internet companies and
the maker of WeChat, has made a similar deal with Sony Music Entertainment
·
Netflix will now bring private recommendations to Android
phones and smartwatches
·
HBO Go is now on the Amazon Fire TV
·
Ultrakam is throwing its hat into the super high-quality
video arena with an update that lets you capture video in 4K at 50MB/s using
the MJPEG codec - it works with both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus
·
Vice has hired James H. Schwab, the chairman of the media
and entertainment group at the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton &
Garrison, as its co-president
·
Coke will no longer sponsor ‘American Idol’
·
MoviePass, the subscription service that fancies itself as a
Netflix for movie buffs, has partnered with AMC
·
Musixmatch, is attempting to be the ‘IMDB of music lyrics’
with Clip, an innovative lyric video messaging service that launched last
Friday
·
Vevo's Mexico service registered over one billion views in
November, a significant milestone that now makes that country Vevo’s second
largest market after the United States
·
Sony leaks reveal Hollywood is trying to break DNS, the
backbone of the internet
·
Please see below for an interesting article on internet fame
vs Hollywood celebrity
·
Disney is taking Disney Cinemagic off the air in Spain
starting in the New Year
Tech:
·
Polaroid’s Socialmatic is a 14-megapixel camera that connects
over Wi-Fi so you can post images to Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter
·
Dots, the mobile gaming studio responsible for two
dead-simple but beautiful games, is today announcing the close of a $10MM round,
as well as the official spinout of Dots as its own company, separate from
betaworks
·
Line prematurely announced the introduction of its chat app
payments feature earlier this month, but now it has begun rolling out to its 500
million-plus registered users
·
Please see below for the top Google searches of 2014
·
The Nest thermostat can now be controlled by voice
·
Messaging app Kik is embracing one of the hallmarks of
social networks after it introduced hashtag on its service
·
TodayTix built an app for theater tickets, and now that it’s
selling 2% to 3% of tickets for most Broadway shows in New York City, and it
raised a $6.1MM Series A
·
Time Inc. just announced a partnership with Bitcoin wallet
Coinbase that will enable the company to accept Bitcoin payments
·
Google has approached retailers about creating a "buy'
button" for Google
Deals:
·
Video chat service Tinychat has
been acquired by Paltalk, another video messaging company
·
SoftBank announced a $90MM round
for Locon Solutions, the company behind India’s Housing.com property portal
·
AdRev, which provides digital
rights management for large music publishers on YouTube, said Monday that it
has purchased DashGo, a service that allows artists, labels, and publishers to
distribute, promote, market, and license music across digital retailers
Business:
·
T-Mobile customers will be able to retain data they don’t
use from their cap each month, and put it towards future use, starting in
January
·
Upfront Ventures raised $280MM for its fifth fund (they
heavily invested in Maker Studios)
·
Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties, China’s biggest
developer of shopping centers, raised $3.7B on Tuesday in its initial public
offering in Hong Kong
·
Caesars Entertainment Operating Company, the main operating
unit of Caesars Entertainment, says it will not pay $225M in bond interest
payments in light of ongoing discussions with first lien bondholders
·
U.S. stocks shook off early pessimism and moved sharply
higher on Tuesday, following a complete recovery in oil prices, while foreign
exchange markets (Russia) remained volatile
Exec Moves:
·
Virgin Galactic has hired former
White House official Richard DalBello
·
RealD said late Monday that its
Chief Technology Officer and Chief Innovation Oficer, Gary Sharp, is leaving
the company
Retail:
Startups:
·
Digit, which announced a $2.5MM seed
round on Tuesday, is part of a growing group of personal finance startups
attempting to appeal to millennials to save money
·
SurveyMonkey, the Silicon Valley
company that runs an online survey and questionnaire platform, announced today
that it has raised $250MM in a new round of funding
o http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/15/with-ma-in-mind-surveymonkey-snaps-up-250-million-more-in-funding/
·
WeWork, a community for creators,
just raised $355MM in its Series A at a $5B valuation
·
Adyen, a technology company that
provides a single platform to accept payments anywhere in the world through any
sales channel, raised $250MM in its Series B
·
Peter Thiel's Founders Fund is
leading a $75MM Series B round in the cannabis startup Privateer at a $425MM pre-money
valuation
Government:
·
Metasploit has been the most important tool in the hacking
world: An open-source Swiss Army knife of hacks that puts the latest exploits
in the hands of anyone who’s interested, from random criminals to the thousands
of security professionals who rely on the app to scour client networks for
holes – and now the FBI is using it to identify people using the Tor anonymity
network
·
Jeb Bush might run for president in 2016
Other:
·
Jack Davis, the legendary Mad
magazine illustrator and movie poster artist, is finally hanging up his pencils
at age 90
No comments:
Post a Comment