Worldwide Biggies raises $9m round

These guys have been out for about a year and have just decided to raise a round.

From NewTeeVee:

"Albie Hecht, the former president of Nickelodeon, has raised $9 million and secured distribution deals for Worldwide Biggies, his young adult- and family-focused digital studio. Worldwide Biggies is not exclusively devoted to online productions, though web distribution is a part of all of its projects.

“We birth things online but make sure they have multi-platform DNA so they can be transported elsewhere,” said Hecht in an interview Monday. That means constraining itself a smaller budget — a.k.a. lots of green screens — and having the agility to quickly incorporate viewer feedback. “We can constantly be version 3 the day after version 2,” he said.

NBC Universal, Hearst Corp., Greycroft, Platform Equity, and PrismVentureWorks invested in the company, which already has a hit under its belt with The Naked Brothers Band TV series (accompanied by webisodes and podcasts) for Nickelodeon.

NBC plans to partner with and potentially invest in additional digital entertainment studios, with Worldwide Biggies being the first and additional deals in the works, said George Kliavkoff, chief digital officer at NBC Universal, in an interview Monday."

NBC: digital local content

NBC's new O&O guy says digital content for local TV stations needs to focus on local. John highlights the need for "local portals" and hopes to have "laser beams" in a bid to become the "Diet Coke" of "local content": just one calorie, not local enough.

From Broadcast & Cable:

"John Wallace, the new president of the NBC owned and operated stations, is urging his general managers to put as much of a local stamp on their product as possible. "You’ll see a big change in the focus on local, in terms of our digital strategy," he says. "It's our intent to have a bigger presence in niche communities and get away from general news."

Wallace stressed the significance of "local portals" on the Web that cover topics such as health, entertainment and sports on an ultra-local level.

"There are a lot of unique qualities in each marketplace," Wallace says. "There’ll be a very different look and feel to how we present content in that marketplace. There’ll be major reliance on [general managers’] local expertise."

Wallace also vowed to make mobile distribution more of a priority. He promised to forge ahead with equal parts caution and ambition: "We’ll move at the right pace, but we’ll take some big swings too."

NBBC: parts and pieces to Clown Co.

From beta launch to dead pool in 10 months.

From TechCrunch:

"The remains of NBBC will be merged into the NBC/ News Corp joint venture first announced in March.

The new service, dubbed Clown Co by some has long been discussed but to date is yet to appear. Strangely, News Corp recently launched MySpace TV, a YouTube competitor in its own right that will compete directly with the NBC/ News Corp joint venture.

In an interview with MediaPost, George Kliavkoff, NBCU’s chief digital officer justified the closure of NBBC as a step towards strengthening the NBC/ News Corp joint venture : “we saw that “NewSite” could use NBBC’s resources, so last Friday afternoon we agreed to contribute it to the NewSite effort.”

The closure of NBBC and the transfer of IP and talent does not extend to existing agreements. Over 150 partners of NBBC, including Hearst, A&E Television Networks, The Horror Channel, Vibe Media Group, CNET Networks and Forbes.com will be required to negotiate new contracts with the new service."

Internal memo to content "partners" via Lost Remote:

"As part of our contribution, nbbc must sever all on-going business relationships in preparation for the merger. Therefore, this note serves as your 30-day notice of service termination with nbbc. NewSite is an independent operating entity and may reach out to you to explore potential business partnerships."

From TechCrunch comments:

"I’ve been consulting with NBBC. It’s kind of a nightmare being in the meetings. None of the senior executive team have any clue as to how to build a video portal, or how to build a cohesive development team. None of them have a clear vision - its ridiculous. They expect to compete with the likes of Youtube and Google, and there is much talk of building the killer experience, yet they can’t even put out a ’standard’ product that just works."

ClownCo gets a leader: already worth $1 billion!

The not-yet-named joint venture between NBC and News Corp has named a leader.

From Lost Remote:

"Former Amazon.com senior VP, Jason Kilar has been named to head up the video joint venture organized by NBCU and News Corp. Kilar had written up the business plan for Amazon’s entry into the video and DVD business. A name for the joint venture has yet to be announced, and NBCU and News Corp. still say the launch is planned for this summer."

From NewTeeVee:

"But the company, which still doesn’t have a name, is making the rounds meeting venture capitalists, and private equity people trying to raise $100 million on a valuation of about $1 billion. Multiple sources both in New York and Silicon Valley have confirmed NewCo’s attempts to raise cash. PaidContent had reported on this last month, and since then things haven’t changed much."

NBC backs Sugar

NBC has taken a stake in the Sugar publishing network.

From TechCrunch:

"Sugar Publishing, the company behind the hugely successful Team Sugar and ten or so other blogs aimed at the female demographic, will announce a new round of financing tomorrow. They are not disclosing the size of the round, but it is being led by NBC Universal, with participation from previous investor Sequioia Capital. They previously raised $5 million, on a rumored $12-15 million pre-money valuation.

Sugar Publishing continues to grow at a torrent pace. They claim 4.5 million monthly unique visitors and 40 million page views (see earlier numbers here). CEO Brian Sugar says they will continue to launch new blogs over the summer, including CasaSugar (home), LilSugar (babies), CitizenSugar (politics), PetSugar (pets) and SavvySugar (career & finance)."

Clown Co. pile on

As you no doubt know, NBC and Fox ( and MySpace, Yahoo, MSN and AOL) announced the formation of a yet to be named company (ClownCo. for you Google people) to create the largest advertising platform ever.

From Bloomberg:

"NBC and News Corp. will create a new Web site that features full-length films and television shows, the companies said today. Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft Corp.'s MSN and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, Google's biggest rivals, will distribute the shows on their sites."

From PaidContent:

"Zucker: Within hours of word getting out yesterday they had five charter advertisers and two more came in this morning. (One is Royal Carribean.) There will be a separate ad sales force for Newco.

YouTube: Chernin: “This is obviously not a YouTube killer. It it were .. we’d obviously have a standalone site ... We’re obviously willing to meet with anybody” who meets business and copyright requirements. They have already talked to Google (CEO Eric Schmidt) this morning."

From WVfF:

"Based on Yahoo, AOL and MSN’s involvement I’m not sure this is an online video “site” at all. It sounds like a new distribution platform for NBC and Fox. This is motivated by the old “an enemy of my enemy is my friend” theory, but I do think it’s far more sustainable than previous attempts by networks to dethrone YouTube and others. For starters, it will have good content and a wide audience."

More PaidContent:

"Content partners coming in now will have “extraordinary content protection—IP protection that they hadn’t before. ... Any distribution partner is already signed up to protect your content.”

The executive said all of the partners committed to protection beyond the requirements. The deals include filtering of all user-uploaded video. “If you’re getting paid for Heroes on someone’s profile page why would you let the same clip be uploaded by someone?”

One more point: “The content-protection language was negotiated long into the night for the last three nights—no other (prospective) content partners know what we’ve got.”

-- a “really favorable rev share on the advertising” (We have confirmed independently that split is 90-10 for equity partners.)

-- “the opportunity to opt into a network that gives you immediate access to 96 percent of U.S. internet users”

Lost Remote 1:

"What about affiliates? “Potentially they could be distribution partners,” NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker said. “We’ll be looking at that in coming days.” But currently, no profit sharing for affiliates."

Lost Remote 2:

"NBC’s owned-and-operated stations division has shown interest in becoming a distribution partner for the new NBCU-News Corp. video site, a NBCU exec tells Lost Remote. As we’ve reported below, NBC and Fox affiliates currently aren’t partners in the new joint venture, but the exec said “there’s no reason why any of the affiliates can’t be distribution partners,” which would involve a revenue share of the advertising. “We want to talk to them.”

Lost Remote 3: round up of MSM comments

"USA Today: “NBC Universal and News Corp. … unveiled their splashiest effort yet to hang on to people who want to watch popular TV shows and movies on their computer screens.”

From Terry Heaton:

"While everybody’s whooping and hollering, it cannot go unnoticed that the affiliates take it in the shorts on this deal (again). Oh, they have protections built in (the delay window will be several hours after shows air in Hawaii), but this is certainly a play that by-passes the affiliate system. I suppose the next move would be for broadcast companies to get in on the deal and provide their locally produced content in a similar manner."

From Terry Heaton's comments:

"Terry I don’t really see what’s in this NBC/News proposal for broadcast companies like LIN and Belo. Why would a viewer click on a several hour old clip from Wichita Falls News@6? Most local affiliate produced content has the shelf life of a good French baguette — less than a day. Besides the Clownco/Newco revenue model doesn’t leave room for local advertisers. No, this is 110% bad news for the affiliates."

From TechCrunch:

"There will be no centralized site for the service. Instead, content will be available through distribution partners, who will also receive a small share of advertising revenue. The company also said they will be looking to add many more distribution partners, and users will also be able to embed content (along with advertising) directly into their sites.

The two key messages Chernin and Zucker were selling were (1) a focus on respecting copyright, and (2) the fact that they were creating what they called “the largest advertising platform on earth.” That may be good messaging to stockholders, but it isn’t what the public cares about.

First, the fact that only two networks joined is a really bad sign. Viacom at least should have been willing to join. Second, this group has little experience in creating web applications, and no experience building the kind of stuff, like YouTube, that users get seriously passionate about. Third, the track record of major media companies working together to deal with this kind of viral attack on their business is not good."

From TechCrunch comments:

"A DRM-ed video full of adverts. Man, how can I get myself some of those! (And this is coming from someone who runs a site that only features videos. You’d think I’d be excited by the prospect of a streaming episode of ‘Heroes’ but sadly no. Not in this format.)"

NBC's Bob Wright: Last Chance Theater

NBC Universal Chairman Bob Wright tells B&C that this is the last chance for big media to move into an unguarded digital media world.

From Broadcasting & Cable:

"For a survey of the "state of the media" for the magazine’s Jan. 29 edition, Wright says that the media are generally strong, with some weakness in more narrowly-focused, ad-driven businesses.

But he says that "even the healthy are infected with a low-grade fever of confusion, which needs to be closely monitored and treated over the next few years."

The confusion stems from the decline in revenues from traditional business lines coupled with uncertainty about the best strategy for replacing them with revenues from new, digital-based businesses with lower margins, principally the result of start-up and overhead costs," he told B&C.

"This is the last business cycle in which a traditional media company can deliver good results without digital constituting 20-30% of its business," says Wright. "Three years from now, success will require your traditional areas to be performing at the top of their games while at the same time deriving significant income - not just revenues - from digital media."

NBC's Smokin' Aces Second Life Assassin (UPDATE)

This is so cool, via eightbar. Even though I can't get any of the SLurls to work and there is nothing about registration in the Peacock Room, its still great.

NBC is promoting its upcoming movie, Smokin Aces, with a game in Second Life.

Its basically a big game of in world tag, with real L$ as bounty.

From the site:

"Beginning January 17th, players can join Smokin' Aces: Second Life® Assassin by visiting the Nomad Hotel in Second Life® to pick up game instructions, a hitlist, and weaponry. Think you can smoke Buddy "Aces" Israel? First, you gotta rub out the competition."

UPDATE: If you search "Nomad" in the classifieds it returns, "Smokin' Aces Second Life Assassin" (SLurl) with a "cost" of 40,000. I tried to teleport but its closed till tomorrow I guess.

The game:

• "Hunting
• Targets: The player begins with a contract for 5 hits. The hits are other players in the SASLA game—anywhere in Second Life®. As long as a player is wearing the HUD they are considered actively participating in the game. While actively participating in the game, a player’s location is reported to anyone with that player on his or her hit list. This report will not provide exact X,Y,Z coordinates within Second Life®, but will instead provide the sim name, which narrows the location down to a 16 acre square. When the target is located the two players engage in combat.
• Contracts: Each player will begin with five potential hits. After a hit is accomplished, the assassin will assume his or her prey’s hit list (in addition to their original targets)—giving them more potential targets.

• Bounty
• Game points are acquired by defeating targets, amount of time spent playing Smokin' Aces: Second Life® Assassins, and by inhabiting the Nomad Hotel or Virtual NBC Headquarters.
• Each player will start with a 100 point bounty. With each hit accomplished, the assassin will gain his/her prey’s total point bounty, the addition of their hit list, their weaponry, and all of their power-ups. Active time spent playing the game, and active time spent in Smokin’ Aces Headquarters and Virtual NBC Headquarters will also increase a player’s bounty. o If a player is "killed", their current day’s point bounty will reset back to 100 points and they will start from scratch with the game’s default weaponry."

The Prize:

"L$1,000,000 will be divided among all winning assassins. The top four assassins with each day’s highest bounty/points accumulation (the “Daily Prize Winners”) will receive a total of L$50,000 as follows: 1st Place: L$20,000; 2nd Place: L$15,000; 3rd Place: L$10,000, 4th Place: L$5,000). On the final day of the game, (1/26/07) there will be no Daily Prize Winner. Instead, the grand prize of L$300,000 will be awarded to the game’s top 3 assassins (the “Grand Prize Winners”): 1st Place: L$150,000, 2nd Place: L$100,000, 3rd Place: L$50,000). Prizes have no estimated retail value."

Sab Kanaujia, NBCU and Social Networks

TechCrunch dug out a deleted post in google cache from Sab Kanaujia, VP of Digital Innovation at NBC Digital Media.

The post referred to NBC's position and plans for social networks.

TechCrunch:

"On December 26, 2006 he wrote a long post on his blog outlining NBC’s vision for social networking. Sometime After January 9 the post was removed, although a cached version is here (and a copy of the text is below).

The key strategic decision they made, suggests Kanaujia, was to have a distributed social network instead of one large central property. He says they will build “official communities/fan sites around all our TV shows and movies” for example, and “the current valuations…[of large social networks] do not provide an attractive cost/benefit proposition for ownership.”

From the post:

"NBCU is building a core social networking platform that will provide various tools and functionality on all our major properties to enable users to self-express and find, interact and share with other like-minded users. We’re not launching separate stand-alone destination(s), ala MySpace, Facebook, etc. We’ll have the first launch on one of our biggest properties early next year, and then roll-out on all remaining major properties (over 12) in a phased manner before the end of Q3."

From the comments: Robert Young
"Put another way, there is a very big difference between creating a subset social network around "The Office" out of a pre-existing community like MySpace (which itself was built on a very different value proposition), versus that of creating a vertical social network primarily based on the draw of that show."

From the comments: Briana

"The biggest problem I see with creating a standalone network for companies like NBC is that users don't necessarily want to identify themselves as fans of 'NBC' but rather, fans of your programming."

From the comments: Sab responds to Robert's comment

"NBCU is not creating an array of vertical social networks. We'll have single sign-on at the back-end across all our properties to enable seamless user movement w/o requiring them to create multiple profiles. Effectively, it would be one social network with multiple communities with individual look-and-feel spread across various NBCU properties.

The idea is that "The Office" fans on NBC.com should to be able to find and interact with other fans of that show as easily as they can with the fans of, say, "Battlestar Galactica" on Scifi.com."

iVillage Second Life Girls Night Out

iVillage is going to start a bi-weekly "Girls Night Out" in Second Life.

3pointD:

"iVillage, an online community for women established in 1995, is coming to the virtual world of Second Life in the form of a bi-weekly Girls Night Out that will seek to showcase existing content rather than draw people to a branded location, according to Marc Schiller, CEO of digital brand strategy firm Electric Artists, which is launching the initiative in partnership with the Electric Sheep Company (who are, of course, sponsors of this blog).

Every two weeks, according to Schiller, a different curator will lead a group of iVillage members on a short tour of interesting locations around Second Life. Tours will take in things like tutorials, music, interesting builds and many other subjects, and will also seek to “highlight the great women who are doing amazing things in Second Life,” he said. The first tour, led by Electric Sheep Cory Edo, will kick off on Thursday, December 14th.

“Second Life has an incredibly rich community of women. I didn’t really see that the brands coming into Second Life were addressing these women at all,” Schiller said in an interview with 3pointD. “What’s needed in Second Life are not more branded islands, but letting people know what the great things in Second Life already are. This is about iVillage extending what they already are on the Web, a place to bring women together.”

ESC Cory:

"The other really cool thing about this is: Ivillage foots the bill for the things you’d normally need to invest in to organize a great discussion/tour group. They take care of the land, the loft, the tour HUD, and the promotion - you just come up with some great ideas and organize a tour. You’re free to concentrate on the stuff that really matters - the tour you organize, and being host to a wide variety of people from across the globe."

Third Party Second Life Registration

Several companies are now offering a third party registration process for Second Life.

BCSL:

"The third-party registration API Linden Lab is about to make available will allow organizations to establish a direct relationship with potential Second Lifers from the get-go by facilitating SL registration right at the point of contact via their own corporate web sites.

In fact, both Dell and NBC are ready to roll with this, - they have already integrated it - encouraging people to register for a Second Life account at their corporate web sites. The API isn't quite ready yet as planned, but both have their registration features ready to go.

Dell has done a particularly nice job of tying their SL presence into their web site. Their “choose a region” menu on the home page includes Second Life as a bona fide region, and selecting it takes you to a very attractive page about their SL presence. The page contains a handy direct teleport link as well. NBC also has a registration page for their Second Life Very Virtual Christmas promo."