Tuesday, February 3, 2015

2.3.15

Entertainment:
·         Epoxy was founded with the idea of helping YouTubers to engage with audiences and track their reach on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Vine, and today the company is announcing that it’s partnered with some of the largest new multichannel networks such as Fullscreen, AwesomenessTV and many more
·         "To Kill a Mockingbird" will not be Harper Lee's only published book after all - Publisher Harper announced Tuesday that "Go Set a Watchman" a novel Harper Lee completed in the 1950s and put aside, will be released July 14
·         Scott Eastwood is set to co-star alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley in Oliver Stone’s untitled film about NSA leaker Edward Snowden
·         ‘Selma’ co-star and producer Oprah Winfrey has teamed with the film’s director Ava DuVernay to create a new original drama series for OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network
·         Suge Knight has pleaded not guilty to murder, attempted murder and other charges filed after he struck two men with his truck last week
·         The opening of the Shanghai Disney Resort is to be pushed back from late this year to the first half of 2016
·         Missy Elliott’s well-received guest turn during Katy Perry’s Super Bowl halftime show is generating 1000% sales gains for Missy
·         Bandsintown, a Web-based service used by a quarter-million artists and 15 million concert-goers, is announcing its new Bandsintown Manager today, a free application for Facebook, iOS and Android
·         Japan is beginning to embrace digital video, witnessing 31% growth in the sector last year to $670MM and marking its card against the country's robust packaged video market
·         Grudge Match Sports is gearing up to officially launch this August, as a multi-pronged entertainment platform that includes a video game, online streaming platform and an updated television show, based on the 1991 Grudge Match TV program
Tech:
·         Despite investing $258MM in Uber in August 2013, Google is preparing to offer its own ride-hailing service, which will most likely be in conjunction with its driverless car project
·         Groupon founder Andrew Mason created an app called Detour to help tourists and locals in San Francisco to wander around and discover parts of the city they’ve never fully explored- it is available for download in the Apple App Store
·         Curioos, a marketplace that allows digital artists to post their work and print them on a variety of materials, launched an augmented reality app letting you see everything in the catalog as it would look on your own wall
·         Twitter began rolling out a new tool to make its service more accessible to new users, it’s called Instant Timeline it’s now available to a small percentage of Twitter users on Android phones
·         Eero is a new smart wireless routing system from the designers at Nest
·         Lego set sharing platform Pley is debuting a crowdsourced set creation platform called PleyWorld that can see a submission go from concept to shipping product in as little as two weeks
·         Driver-on-demand service Uber is building a robotics research lab in Pittsburgh, PA to “kickstart autonomous taxi fleet development”
·         Tinder Plus, the long-awaited “premium” version of Tinder’s service, offering features like an Undo button for errant swipes and a Passport option for searching outside your current geographic region, is nearing launch here in the U.S. for iOS and Android users
·         The Galaxy S6 will be unveiled on March 1st
·         Google has released its annual “bad advertising” report, revealing a sharp increase in the number of miscreant ads it removed in 2014
·         Please see below for an article on why every photo storage startup dies or gets acquired
·         eBay and PayPal began notifying employees who were losing their jobs as part of the cutsas management looks to scale back initiatives that haven’t panned out ahead of the planned split of the two companies in the second half of this year
·         Twitter will start running its core “Promoted Tweet” ad unit on other people’s apps and sites
·         Apple will invest $2 billion to convert a failed sapphire glass manufacturing plant in Arizona into a data center that will also serve as a global “command center,” in an investment that it described as one of the company’s largest
Deals:
·         Sony has sold Sony Online Entertainment, the studio and publisher that created EverQuest (and, to a large extent, the modern MMO genre), in a deal that will see it owned by investment management firm Columbus Nova and rebranded as Daybreak
·         Fundable, a crowdfunding site meant to help groups of people invest in early-stage startups, has acquired a Q&A site for entrepreneurs, Clarity
·         Staples is in talks to buy Office Depot
·         Amazon has discussed acquiring some RadioShack locations, joining other potential bidders, including Sprint and investment group Brookstone
Business:
·         China claims mobile Internet users reached 557 million as of December 2014, a growth of 11.4 percent from the year before
·         Apple led 2014 in ad revenue by a wide margin, according to a new study by Opera Mediaworks, despite Android reaching an all-time high in terms of ad impressions, and leading the overall market for the year on that score
·         Please see below for a slew of statistics that show how online video viewing has increased in 2015
·         Alibaba and Leding Club announced on Tuesday that they were forming a partnership to provide financing for manufacturers in the United States to buy products and supplies through the Chinese marketplace Alibaba.com
·         Verizon is close to selling more than $15B in assets, including towers and parts of its wireline business, as it looks to pay down debt and cover the $10.4B in wireless licenses it won in the FCC's spectrum auction (AWS-3) last week
·         Insider buying by Keurig executives signals the company is on to something big
Exec Moves:
Retail:
Startups:
·         KnCMiner, which makes bitcoin mining software, raised $15MM in its Series B
·         AnyPerk, which provides employee perks such as discounts and VIP treatment in fitness, entertainment, travel, raised $8.5MM in its Series A
Government:
·         The Reserve Bank of Australia has jumped on the easing bandwagon, becoming the latest global central bank to cut interest rates in response to slowing inflation and concerns over economic growth
·         ISIS published several photos Tuesday allegedly showing captive Jordanian pilot Muadh al Kasabeh being burned alive
Other:
·         A mayor in Wisconsin was bit on the ear by a groundhog during their Groundhogs Day Ceremony




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