Thursday, January 29, 2015

1.29.15

Entertainment:
·         Nickelodeon will soon take its shows directly to consumers with the launch of a subscription streaming service in March, according to comments made by Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman on the company’s earnings call on Thursday
·         Facebook has roughly 3 billion video views per day
·         Takehollywood, a new startup offering up online short form videos around different topics about acting has partnered with Venice-based Mobli, the developer of a social sharing app
·         NBCU's EVP of Sales and Sales Marketing Seth Winter announced that all of this Sunday's Super Bowl on-air and online ad units are now sold out
·         HBO tech execs are leaving HBO is preparing to sell a standalone service over the Internet for the first time, in one of the most closely watched moves in pay TV history
·         Earlier this week, ex-intern Camille Demere and her lawyers filed a jury trial-demanding complaint against CBS Corporation and CBS Radio
·         CBS Corp and Canada’s Bell Media have entered a long-term exclusive content licensing and trademark agreement to bring Showtime to the Great White North
·         WME | IMG has acquired Dixon Talent Inc., James Dixon's boutique firm that represents some of the top late-night and comedic talent, including Stephen Colbert, Carson Daly, Jimmy Kimmel, Bill Simmons and Jon Stewart
·         Mercedes-Benz USA collaborated with Robert Stromberg –  ‘Maleficent’ director and a two-time Academy Award winner for Best Art Direction for ‘Alice In Wonderland’ and ‘Avatar’ –  for its Super Bowl ad this year
·         Lionsgate is in advanced discussions with China’s Hunan TV, the country’s second largest broadcaster, to partner on film production and distribution
·         Starz on Wednesday unveiled a deal with Amazon, its first-ever U.S. subscription VOD content licensing deal with the company, for ‘The White Queen’
·         Australian airline Qantas has paired up with Samsung to start offering the company’s Gear VR headset to first class passengers on long-haul flights
·         Oscilloscope Laboratories has joined a Kickstarter campaign to digitally restore “River of Grass,” the rarely-seen 1994 debut feature by Kelly Reichardt
·         Last year's digital performance royalty distributions by SoundExchange rose 31% to $773MM and have climbed 207% over the last four years
·         Listen Up, the London promotion company that is home to Tiesto and Avicii, is opening an L.A. office on Sunset Boulevard
·         Tom Petty has issued a statement about his recent settlement with Sam Smith, in which Smith will pay him royalties for "Stay With Me”
·         Sony has made major enhancements to its PlayStation Network, with Sky adding to the platform's content roster
Tech:
·         Microsoft today launched Outlook for Android and iOS phones and tablets, based on the application it acquired when it bought Acompli last December
·         Imgur has released a fast video-to-GID converter
·         Google Wallet — the search giant’s payments business that competes against PayPal and Apple Pay, among others — is today taking its first step outside of the U.S., in the form of money transfers
·         Tumblr is rolling out a series of updates to its online blogging platform designed to make the service more attractive and useful for content creators, and specifically for those writing long-form content
·         Snapchat launched a new feature called Snaptags that creates a unique QR code for every Snapchat user
·         Amazon has a new product called WorkMail debuting today (via Forbes), which is an email and calendaring service that aims to provide those tools for corporate customers
·         Yeti, an app that is essentially Tinder for places, released an update today that makes it easier for users to use the app for local searches
·         RunKeeper is introducing support for Spotify today, meaning runners, walkers, and cyclists can control their music directly from inside the RunKeeper iPhone app
·         Live-Bet sports app lets you bet on the next play in a football game
·         Whisbi, which for the past seven years has been providing online video calls from salespeople to help website visitors, is now extending that service to virtual store visits through wearable video devices
·         The Ventura County Sheriff's department reported this morning that it arrested two suspects in Thousand Oaks, who were using Uber to help conduct drug deals
·         Samsung declared that it wants an entirely open ecosystem for Internet of Things devices, so they’re pledging $100MM in a IoT funding pool
·         Apple is now the 24th largest retailer in the U.S. by store sales, as of the end of 2014
·         Video game streaming site Twitch, now owned by Amazon, said today that it has crossed 100 million monthly unique viewers — versus 45 million at the same time last year and 20 million the year before that
Deals:
·         Whistle is expanding its position with the acquisition of a competitor in the pet wearable space, Tagg, and adding another $15MM in a Series B round
·         Shareholders of Reynolds American, the maker of Camel cigarettes, approved its $25 billion acquisition of Lorillard, a deal which would combine the second- and third-biggest cigarette companies in the United States
Business:
·         Facebook reported yet another quarter where its revenue rose to a record high. Most significantly, mobile ad revenue doubled compared to the same time last year, breaking $2B for the first time
·         Samsung Electronics reported its lowest annual profit since 2011 during its earnings call today as its smartphone sales continue to suffer from increasing competition
·         After Yahoo completes the spinoff of its $39B stake in the Alibaba Group, the Silicon Valley stalwart may not have much time to turn its core Internet businesses around as it could become a takeover target
·         TPG Capital has sued its former spokesman, Adam Levine, contending that he took confidential documents and distributed them to The New York Times and other media after being denied a promotion to a partnership position
·         Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. revenue missed estimates as the e-commerce giant’s push into mobile curbed its advertising sales growth - the shares fell
·         The London Stock Exchange Group is looking to sell Russell Investments in mid-February, after buying Frank Russell from insurer Northwestern Mutual last year for $2.7B
·         Viacom’s U.S. advertising sales were down 6 percent amid lower ratings, while international ad sales rose 60 percent helped by the acquisition late last year of U.K. broadcaster Channel 5
·         The Federal Communications Commission has closed its auction of AWS-3 wireless spectrum licenses, raising a record $44.9B in the process
Exec Moves:
·         Shasta Ventures has promoted Sean Flynn to Managing Director - Flynn sits on the boards of Los Angeles-based startups TigerText and ZEFR
·         McDonald’s announced on Wednesday that its president and chief executive, Don Thompson, would step down, effective March 1, just days after the fast-food restaurant chain posted one of its worst financial performances in years
·         Univison says that CEO Randy Falco now will stay at least through January 2018
·         Box has tapped a retail veteran to run its Box for Retails business - Josh Chernoff, who led the Americas retail practice at Bain & Company
Retail:
Startups:
·         Giphy has just raised $17MM in Series B funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from General Catalyst and previous investors such as Lerer-Hippeau, betaworks, RRE Ventures, and CAA Ventures
·         Tune, a company that bills itself as “the enterprise platform for mobile marketing,” is announcing that it has raised $27MM in Series B funding
·         D-Wave Systems, a company building what it calls quantum computers, is announcing today that it has taken on around $23.1MM in additional funding
·         Meta, which offers users a total augmented reality (AR) experience, raised $23MM in its Series A
·         Mashable, the leading media company for the Connected Generation and the voice of digital culture, just raised $17MM in its Series B led by Time Warner Investments
Government:
Other:
·         Joe Lonsdale, the technology executive best known as the co-founder of Palantir and a partner of venture capital firm Formation 8, has been accused of gender violence, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and other charges in a civil lawsuit filed this week in San Francisco
·         A children’s hospital in Mexico City was nearly leveled when a gasoline tanker truck exploded Thursday, killing at least seven, including four children


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