When word first got out that most of Hollywood and the tech industry was working on a “Giant Media DRM Cloud Coalition Featuring Everyone Except Apple and Disney” (and Amazon ), the safe bet was to assume the thing would never see the light of day.

But here it is. Today you can buy “Horrible Bosses,” the first UltraViolet-blessed movie, on DVD or Blu-ray, and it will come with a code that will let you stream and/or download the film on other devices, like iPads, Android phones and laptops.

At least in theory. Time Warner’s Warner Bros. showed me some slides yesterday that spelled out how it’s supposed to work — digital access to the movie is tethered to the Flixster app/site the studio bought in May, using Facebook as a login (Mark Zuckerberg = Big Media’s new buddy). But I can’t vouch for it in any way, because I have no idea if it really works.

The idea, though, makes perfect sense: Of course a DVD purchase should entitle you to watch the same movie on multiple machines.

And if Warner Bros. doesn’t charge a premium for UltraViolet movies — which they don’t appear to be doing with “Horrible Bosses” — then it makes a whole lot more sense.

No one is going to get too excited about the prospect of watching “Horrible Bosses” on your laptop and your TV. But Warner Bros., which has been banging the drum hard on this cloud/locker idea, will be rolling out big movies for UltraViolet later this year, including the newest “Harry Potter” and the “Hangover” sequel. Sony will chip in some movies soon, too.

And later on, the UltraViolet folks promise that they’ll have more movies, and more compatible devices, too, like connected TVs and game players like Xbox 360, etc.

A couple of things to think about as this stuff rolls out:

• The UltraViolet people say they can make this work without buy-in from Apple and Amazon, both of whom are launching their own not-that-compatible cloud media services. I’m not so sure about that. For now, UltraViolet is leaning on Flixster, which is already well-distributed on both iOS and Android — which means this should work on Amazon’s Kindle Fire, too. But there will be plenty of places for Apple or Amazon to flex their muscles and make it more difficult for UltraViolet down the line. On the other hand, the studios pushing UltraViolet have stuff that both Apple and Amazon want — digital rights for their movies and TV shows — so there could also be some horse trading.
• All of this only matters if people still want to own movies. The movie guys are quite clear about their motivation for UltraViolet — they think it will sustain a huge revenue stream by encouraging DVD sales. But the technology that makes UltraViolet’s locker work (in theory) also means there’s no reason to own a film at all — if you can pull down whatever you want from the cloud, wherever you are, who cares whether you “own” it or not? This concept used to be hard for people to grasp, but not anymore — which is why Netflix, despite its months of missteps, still has some 24 million subscribers.

Where before, Facebook users had to use their computers for most of their Facebook gaming and app needs, now they should be able to play and participate from almost any device with a Web browser. And they may get a better experience if it happens to be an Apple iOS device.

In fact, though this launch had been described as an affront to Apple, it’s really not — whenever possible, the new Facebook mobile versions will defer to Apple’s native platform and even its payments system.

A big reason why Facebook apps, especially games, didn’t work on phones was because iOS devices don’t support Flash. Facebook has helped a select set of developers — Audiovroom, Branchout, EA, Flixster, Gilt Groupe, Huffington Post, Moblyng, Storm8, Wooga and Zynga — create HTML5 versions of a selection of their apps and game titles that will work in mobile Web browsers.

But HTML5 still doesn’t offer the performance that many complex apps require, so if the developers have created native versions of their apps, they can also connect Facebook users directly to that native app.

So now, when a friend sends you an invitation to play Words With Friends and you view it on the Facebook app on your iPhone, you can click to play and be taken to the Words With Friends app. If you don’t have the app, you’ll be directed to Apple’s App Store. If you’re on an Android phone, you’ll be taken to an HTML5 version in your mobile Web browser.

The combined native and Web app experience is only available on iOS for now. On Android and other phones with Web browsers, users will default to the Web experience. Facebook CTO Bret Taylor told AllThingsD today that Facebook is also working on an update to its native Android application.

While many people will appreciate having a more consistent Facebook app experience, the byproduct of this launch is that it could be much easier for users to find new mobile apps through their friends. Mobile app discovery has been a huge challenge for developers, and social could help unlock that problem by showing people what apps their friends are using.

“We really hope that we can fill a gap in app discovery here,” Taylor said.

On the downside, there’s one place Facebook wasn’t able to negotiate a consistent experience for users: payments. This was a major sticking point in ongoing discussions with Apple, as I’d written last week.

Facebook Credits can’t be used to pay for virtual goods within native iOS apps or mobile Web apps running within a Facebook app on iOS. Instead, users will have to buy separate in-app currency through Apple’s own in-app payment system.

And this after Facebook just required all of its game developers to switch to exclusive use of Credits earlier this year.

“We realize there’s some inconsistency,” Taylor admitted. He wouldn’t say if Facebook gets a share of revenue for in-app purchases it refers to Apple.

As for the Facebook iPad app, it has been close to being released for over a year, according to people who have seen it and worked on it — though the app has changed in scope throughout. Today at 1 pm PT it will finally be available as part of a universal iOS update.

Along with the ability to use Facebook platform apps, the iPad version will feature “an immersive and full-screen photos experience,” plus new and speedy chat and messages interfaces, Taylor said.

All this is being released three weeks after Facebook held its major developer conference, a week after Apple unveiled its new iOS, and just a few days after iconic Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died.

So why now for the mobile platform? “Honestly — because it’s done now,” Taylor said.

“The reason these [launches] are connected is about ease of use, which is particularly acute on something like a tablet,” he added. “We wanted our native apps to be as feature-complete as possible.”

Okay, but the new mobile versions — despite their focus on app discovery — don’t include Facebook’s new live Ticker, which is one of the main ways users can see their friends are engaging with various apps.

That’s true, but probably won’t be for long, Taylor said, attributing the lag time between Web and mobile features to the challenge of designing user interfaces on small screens.

As for Facebook’s relationship with Apple? “We have a good relationship with Apple and we’ve worked with them on all our iOS releases,” Taylor said.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

But one of the most important elements of today’s news will take place outside of Facebook’s walls. A crucial part of the new strategy involves letting people sign up for someone else’s site, or service, with a single click, using their Facebook ID.

In other words, lots of big players are going to start sharing their locks and keys with Facebook.

The trade-off is straightforward: You give up (some) control of your own territory, with all the attendant risks that come with that, and in return you get a lot more people showing up at your door.

The media companies that are working with Facebook today are familiar with this dynamic — it’s quite similar to the one they face when they work with Apple and its App Store.

And my guess is they’re now more willing to engage so deeply with Facebook precisely because they’re already deep with Apple. This helps them gain a bit of leverage back.

Hollywood, for instance, doesn’t want Tim Cook to control digital access to their stuff in the way that Steve Jobs locked in the music industry. So it’s likely to let Facebook become an authentication system for various locker/cloud strategies the studios roll out, most notably their Ultraviolet program coming out this year. The cable industry has talked about the same thing.

I don’t think you’re going to see this kind of really deep integration announced today, though. Instead, you’ll see the groundwork for it.

Warner Bros’ Flixster, for instance, will be a launch partner, and that service’s new features allow users to share their collections of movies they watched and would like to watch with their friends. And once you’re signed up for that, it’s easy to imagine registering collections of movies that you actually own with Flixster, too. And once you’ve done that, you could access them from a locker/cloud service, all using your Facebook ID and password.

That’s a (potentially) very big deal. Keep your eyes open.

[Image via Shutterstock/Péter Gudella]

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I’ve given the service — which uses the Flixster brand that Warner Bros acquired earlier this year but which the studio built on its own over the last 12 months — a quick spin. Given that it just went into public beta yesterday, there’s no way to really assess how it’s going to work. Particularly since it’s supposed to be a social experience, and if no one you know is using it, it can’t be that social.

That said, you can at least get a sense of what Warner Bros. is trying to do here, and it’s a lot: They want Flixster to serve as your starting point whenever you’re thinking about renting, buying or watching a movie, or even when you’re thinking about thinking about it.

The free service ties into users’ Amazon, Apple iTunes, Hulu and Netflix accounts — as well as your hard drive, if you let it. And it lets you and your friends see what you’ve already watched, via “collections” that get displayed as movie posters (it doesn’t seem to have hang-ups about the “Bork law” that Netflix says prevents a Facebook integration the rental service wants to launch in the U.S.). It can also direct you back to those services when you want to watch something else.

And if you’d like to see a movie that’s actually in theaters, it can help there, too, via links to movie reviews, trailers and online ticketing services. You can also imagine how this will tie in to “Ultraviolet,” the cloud/locker system for video that Warner and a big coalition of movie studios and tech companies (except for Apple and Amazon) are pushing.

Sound like a lot of … stuff? It is! And the scope of the service’s offerings, plus the fact that it requires a standalone download (for Mac and PCs only for now, though mobile apps will be coming), may be a lot for casual video fans to take in. Especially since Facebook and Twitter already do a pretty good job of letting you and your friends gab about movies — without the privacy worries of letting a service look into your Netflix queue or root around in your hard drive.

And again, since the service is really supposed to shine once you can start sharing your likes and dislikes with friends, getting enough folks to sign on might be a challenge. Still, there’s nothing wrong with trying something big and ambitious.

What exactly is m-commerce? To find out, we recently interviewed consumers at America’s top retail centers and malls, from New York’s Soho and Fifth Avenue districts to The Grove and Santa Monica Place in Los Angeles. What we discovered is that consumers limit their definition of m-commerce to the actual act of making purchases via mobile phones. We also learned something unexpected. Consumers are surprisingly self-conscious about their phones’ capabilities and perceived limitations when it comes to m-commerce–specifically around purchasing. Two factors are driving this phenomenon.

First, some smartphone users have a bad case of device envy–you could call it the “if I had an iPhone” syndrome. Most often Blackberry owners, these shoppers simply do not believe their smartphone is up to snuff when it comes to surfing the mobile Web or using shopping-enabled apps.

Second, users of traditional mobile phones generally–and incorrectly–believe their phone is not m-com enabled. Even if they are aware of their device’s capabilities, they do not believe they can afford the necessary data plan.

With AT&T launching the first tiered data plans last year and T-Mobile introducing $10 per month data plans last month, this is one problem that will take care of itself, and another important reason the tipping point is now.

Despite consumers’ self-consciousness about their smartphones’ supposedly limited capabilities and their very literal view of m-commerce as purely purchase-driven, many are already incorporating these always-at-their-sides devices into their shopping routines-even if they don’t know it! They use their smartphones to scout out store locations, look up competitors’ prices and snap photos of potential purchases to share with friends and family.

Smartphone users are, of course, making certain purchases on their devices. They tend to be inexpensive, commoditized and time-sensitive items, such as movie tickets or exclusive, act-now deals. What works is what’s easy and immediate.

Right now, apps, more than anything else, are enabling these transactions. User-friendly, intuitive and efficient, with pre-populated credit card and shipping fields, apps let consumers buy seamlessly, rather than struggle with entering account numbers on an iPhone, something few want to do in the heat of the shopping moment. Amazon, eBay, Gilt Groupe, Fandango and Flixster are putting apps to work successfully today.

But apps have drawbacks. Who wants to download a separate one for every store where you might shop? This is where the mobile web can and should come into play.

Unfortunately, many mobile sites tend to fall short right now. They are often oversimplified and lack the full functionality of traditional e-commerce sites. Worse yet, they are not optimized for phone browsers–slow to load, with broken links and menus that don’t fit small screens.

So, where does this all leave us? Well, with smartphone users already making time-sensitive purchases, data-plan prices coming down and more sophisticated devices on the way, it’s clear the m-commerce tipping point is upon us. Smart marketers need to concentrate on making it easier for smartphone users to find what they want, where and when they want it. The key will be mixing and matching the best of the mobile web and apps, from easy-and-fast downloads to geolocation and store locator features to social media integration, multiple platform compatibility and more.

For those that can get it right, the mobile commerce possibilities are boundless–with transactions literally taking place anytime, everywhere.

Jane Randel is Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications & Brand Services for Liz Claiborne Inc.

Recently, BoomTown reported that Flixster–the popular social movie site whose brands include the Rotten Tomatoes premium reviews site–was in early acquisition discussions with several suitors.

Now, said sources, Warner Bros. appears to be the frontrunner in various talks to buy the entertainment site, while Internet giant Yahoo has dropped out due to price concerns.

The reason for interest from the Time Warner-owned studio, said sources, is due to a spate of recent digital efforts, including its expansion of a movie rental experiment on Facebook.

As MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka wrote last night:

Facebook users watch “The Dark Knight” on the social network for $3. Now it has added five more movies, and is asking more money for three recent releases: It will cost you 40 Facebook Credits–the equivalent of $4–to rent “Inception,” “Life As We Know It” and “Yogi Bear” on the site. The first two “Harry Potter” movies, however, are at the original price.

Flixster has a strong presence on the Silicon Valley social networking giant, which could make it a good vehicle to attract people to the movie rental effort, as well as a popular mobile app.

Interestingly, Rotten Tomatoes was once owned outright by another traditional media giant: News Corp.

It is now only a minority shareholder, after trading Rotten Tomatoes for a 20 percent stake in the combined entity a little over a year ago.

News Corp., which owns 20th Century Fox Studios, is not bidding for Flixster, several sources said.

The price being discussed for the San Francisco-based start-up is between $60 million and $90 million.

Any acquisition negotiations could always fail, of course. In fact, Flixster held advanced discussions in late 2007 with IAC/InterActiveCorp.

Flixster trades all kinds of recommendations, ratings and news and even posts user-generated movie reviews on its Web site and via widgets on social networking sites, mostly on Facebook, and on mobile devices.

Co-founded in 2006 by CEO Joe Greenstein and CTO Saran Chari, Flixster has raised $7 million in venture funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Pinnacle Ventures, as well as garnering angel investments, such as from Silicon Valley entrepreneur and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.

The combination with Rotten Tomatoes and its more robust Web presence made a lot of sense. It features mostly premium content, including professional reviews, trailer videos and news.

The site is famous for its clever fresh and rotten tomato rating system for movies.

I have not received a response from emails sent to Flixster and Warner Bros. requesting comment.

Flixster–the popular social movie site whose brands include the Rotten Tomatoes premium reviews site, as well as BuddyTV–is in early acquisition talks with several suitors, including Yahoo, said sources close to the situation.

The price being discussed for the San Francisco-based start-up is between $60 million and $90 million, said several sources, in talks that are “substantive.”

Nonetheless, any acquisition negotiations could always fail. In fact, Flixster held advanced discussions in late 2007 with IAC/InterActiveCorp.

Along with Yahoo, which is interested in bringing in a strong team to bolster the entertainment offerings of the Silicon Valley Internet portal, sources said several media giants are also eyeing Flixster in order to strengthen their ties to entertainment consumers. Likely candidates in this regard include Disney and Warner Bros.

Interestingly, one of Flixster’s big shareholders is News Corp., which traded its Rotten Tomatoes unit for a 20 percent stake in the combined entity a little over a year ago.

But its minority stake gives News Corp. little influence over Flixster’s fate, although its IGN gaming unit head Roy Bahat is on the Flixster board. News Corp.–which has been shedding Web properties, such as its current effort to sell MySpace–is not bidding for Flixster.

But the interest in the site by Yahoo and others is obvious.

Flixster has attracted a huge online audience, which trades all kinds of recommendations, ratings, news and even post user-generated movie reviews on the Web site and via widgets on social networking sites, mostly on Facebook. Its recent mobile app efforts have been successful.

Co-founded in 2006 by CEO Joe Greenstein and CTO Saran Chari, Flixster has raised $7 million in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Pinnacle Ventures, as well as garnering angel investments, such as from Silicon Valley entrepreneur and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.

The combination with Rotten Tomatoes and its more robust Web presence made a lot of sense. It features mostly premium content, including professional reviews, trailer videos and news.

The site is famous for its clever fresh and rotten tomato rating system for movies.

A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment and I have not received a response from emails sent to Greenstein.

Until he does, here’s my video interview with Greenstein, Chari and COO Steve Polsky, in which they talked about the deal to combine Flixster with Rotten Tomatoes:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110316/100-percent-fresh-exclusive-flixsterrotten-tomatoes-in-acquisition-talks-with-yahoo-and-others/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20100928/exclusive-myspace-and-rubicon-project-in-fan-swap-deal/ http://allthingsd.com/20100928/exclusive-myspace-and-rubicon-project-in-fan-swap-deal/#comments Tue, 28 Sep 2010 15:48:47 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=34319

MySpace is trading most of the assets of its Fox Audience Network to the Rubicon Project in exchange for a significant equity minority stake, according to sources close to the situation.

Under the deal, which is nearly complete with a signed term sheet, MySpace will hand over a number of parts of FAN, including most of its 300 employees.

FAN–after a number of attempts to spin off from News Corp. (NWS), which owns the advertising network and MySpace–was recently spun into the social networking site after the departure of its top exec, Adam Bain, to Twitter.

But News Corp. and MySpace management decided it made less sense to keep most of FAN within MySpace, which is in the midst of a massive overhaul of the troubled service that will debut in a few weeks. MySpace will keep parts of FAN related to user data, said sources.

Both companies are based in the Los Angeles area. Rubicon is one of three big “yield optimizers,” which aim to help publishers manage their relationship with advertising networks so they get the highest possible dollar for the ad space. It competes with PubMatic and AdMeld.

A variety of rumors have swirled around FAN and a number of ad companies over the last several months. One recently in AdExchanger.com had Rubicon being folded into MySpace.

Not so. Instead, this deal is similar to one that News Corp. did in January of this year with Flixster, spinning its Rotten Tomatoes movie-review unit into the San Francisco social movie site for a large minority stake in the combined entity.

Several companies were looking at the pieces of FAN, sources said, but Rubicon was the cleanest option.

It’s a save all around. Sources said Rubicon had hired boutique investment bank Allen & Co. to look at a variety of alternatives for it and also had been reshuffling its staff.

BoomTown has calls in to both companies and am awaiting official comment.

(Full disclosure: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100928/exclusive-myspace-and-rubicon-project-in-fan-swap-deal/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100527/exclusive-the-digital-end-is-nigh-news-corp-unloading-beliefnet-and-considering-jettisoning-jambajamster/ http://allthingsd.com/20100527/exclusive-the-digital-end-is-nigh-news-corp-unloading-beliefnet-and-considering-jettisoning-jambajamster/#comments Thu, 27 May 2010 17:17:23 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=28965

Beliefnet, the spirituality site bought by News Corp. in late 2007, is being shopped around for sale, according to several sources.

Sources said that the media giant is also considering selling off Berlin-based Jamba/Jamster, a mobile content provider now called Fox Mobile Group. News Corp. (NWS) paid $187.5 million to VeriSign (VRSN) for a 51 percent stake in Jamba in 2006 and bought the rest in 2008.

Founded by Steve Waldman and Robert Nylen in 1999, Beliefnet is a social networking site focused on religious, spiritual and faith-based issues, with $7 million in venture funding from Softbank Capital, as well as an initial angel investor round.

While its users skew Christian, the site offers blogs, news and other services related to Islam, Judaism and many other faiths, in addition to Christianity.

Its motto: “Our mission is to help people like you find, and walk, a spiritual path that will bring comfort, hope, clarity, strength, and happiness.”

The site was bought for an undisclosed sum by News Corp.’s Fox Entertainment Group as part of the Fox Digital Media unit. The digital strategy was to distribute some of its religious-based content on Beliefnet.

News Corp. has recently sold off some of the digital purchases it had made several years ago, such as its Rotten Tomatoes site to Flixster in a stock-trading deal.

Interestingly, Beliefnet’s Waldman is now senior adviser on the future of media and information technology to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski.

Jamba was founded by Germany’s Samwer Brothers. On its Web site, News Corp. said it eventually bought it out entirely and “aligned the company’s business strengths with the global market opportunities in mobile entertainment, enabling it to underline its leadership in mobile content distribution, licensing and production as well as offering its customer a broad and up-to-date portfolio of mobile entertainment content further on.”

A News Corp. spokeswoman declined to comment on either Beliefnet or Jamba.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100527/exclusive-the-digital-end-is-nigh-news-corp-unloading-beliefnet-and-considering-jettisoning-jambajamster/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100420/like-boomtown-said-partovi-brothers-finally-leave-myspace/ http://allthingsd.com/20100420/like-boomtown-said-partovi-brothers-finally-leave-myspace/#comments Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:22:40 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=27307

Well-known tech entrepreneurs and twin brothers Ali and Hadi Partovi (pictured here, right to left) are leaving MySpace, in a high-profile departure for the struggling social networking company.

Internal memos were sent around to staff this afternoon about the executive change, said sources, which you can see below.

“Hey everybody, it’s been super tough staying quiet about this news at the request of our execs,” said Hadi Partovi, in an internal memo obtained by BoomTown. “I know some of you are very surprised about this, and I want to apologize for not having had the option to brief you personally in advance.”

Hadi was SVP of Technology at the News Corp. (NWS) unit, while Ali was SVP of Business Development. Hadi will leave MySpace entirely, while Ali will have a special adviser role, said the memo from MySpace Co-President Michael Jones.

In a blog post in March titled, “MySpace Musical Chairs: Will the Partovis Stay or Will They Go Now?,” I wrote:

“In all likelihood, said sources, the Partovis will remain at MySpace for the next several months, although they are likely to move eventually to more senior advisory or special-project roles there in order to pursue longtime outside investing and entrepreneurial interests.”

Now that has come to pass.

The fate of the well-known tech wunderkinds has been one of the more interesting guessing games of late at MySpace.

MySpace managers have been keenly interested in avoiding the appearance that the company is in the grip of a talent drain, especially related to such well-known innovators.

The Partovis arrived in the midst of turbulent change at MySpace last August, just after its original CEO and co-founder, Chris DeWolfe, was suddenly tossed out and replaced by CEO Owen Van Natta, as well as COO Jones and Chief Product Officer Jason Hirschhorn.

As part of its new strategy to become an entertainment hub, the Beverly Hills, Calif.-based MySpace bought the Partovis’ social music start-up, iLike, in a deal engineered by Van Natta.

After it closed, Hadi was mostly working in MySpace’s Seattle office, and Ali was mostly based in San Francisco.

(See this funny welcome video Ali Partovi did at the time.)

But Van Natta suddenly got the boot in January after clashing with News Corp. digital chief Jon Miller, as well as Hirschhorn and Jones, sending MySpace into yet another storm.

Hirschhorn and Jones were then named co-presidents.

While several sources said the Partovis are not unhappy with the pair or with the new MySpace mediacentric strategy, the brothers sold their company with the idea of working with Van Natta.

“That firing reset things,” said one source close to the situation in March.

Nonetheless, there was some progress with iLike, including integration of MySpace Music with Google (GOOG) and a MySpace Events offering.

In addition, the pair have wide-ranging interests outside the company, including an active investment portfolio in such start-ups as Facebook, Dropbox, Opower, BlueKai and Flixster.

They have already scored big with investments in Tellme, which was sold to Microsoft (MSFT); Zappos, which was acquired by Amazon (AMZN); and IronPort, now owned by Cisco (CSCO).

And though iLike was not the success they had hoped for, their entrepreneurial record is strong. Ali Partovi sold LinkExchange to Microsoft, and Hadi Partovi, who also worked at Microsoft, co-founded Tellme.

Now, it seems, the Partovis are moving on to the next challenge.

Here are the internal memos from Hadi Partovi to iLike staff and from MySpace’s Jones:

From: Hadi Partovi
Date: Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 5:15 PM
Subject: Fwd: Organizational Update (re Ali + Hadi)
To: staff
Cc: Ali Partovi

Hey everybody, it’s been super tough staying quiet about this news at the request of our execs. I know some of you are very surprised about this, and I want to apologize for not having had the option to brief you personally in advance.

I also want to call out looking backwards that we’ve all done a heck of a lot in just the last 6 months to help improve the MySpace business and to integrate iLike technology. Just a short list is below.

- iLike integrated MySpace Music into Google search (iLike provided the team, technology, and Google deal)
- iLike team+technology helped implement MySpace Events, launched with multi-million-dollar sponsorship commitments
- all iLike.com traffic has been merged into MySpace’s overall Comscore metrics
- iLike’s products have been featured in a TV ad by Apple, and will be in an upcoming TV ad by another major tech company
- iLike’s promotional engine has been used multiple times in coordination with MSM to promote new albums or new artists
- MSM videos have been integrated into iLike.com and iLike on Facebook
- iLike’s artist-stats are integrated into the MySpace artist dashboard
- iLike.com drives search engine traffic to MySpace artist pages
- iLike team implemented the imeem traffic redirection and data backend of imeem playlist integration
- iLike team provided backend metadata + recommendation engine for MySpace music search and song-similarities

Most importantly, thanks to our work, MySpace is the #1 provider of music on Facebook, music on Google, and Concerts on iPhone. Regardless of any challenges that MySpace needs to overcome, that is a great legacy that I know we’re all proud of.

I’m personally very sad that I won’t be working with any of you–the amazing team we built at iLike is perhaps our greatest accomplishment.

I’ll send an email to the Seattle folks to organize a proper going-away celebration :)

hadi

From: Mike Jones
Date: Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 4:52 PM
Subject: Organizational Update
To: XXX
Cc: Jason Hirschhorn

Hi everyone,

Effective on Friday, MySpace SVP of Technology Hadi Partovi is leaving to pursue other opportunities. In addition to continuing his work as an advisor and angel investor to various startups, he will be following his passion for education by working directly with technology focused non-profits. Hadi leaves as a valued friend to the company, and we wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors.

Ali Partovi will be stepping down as SVP of Business Development, but will continue working with MySpace as a strategic advisor working on special projects. He will also be taking time to invest in and advise startups.

Hadi and Ali were instrumental in integrating iLike’s best in class technology into the MySpace brand. Last week’s successful Events launch was a direct result of that collaboration. Other noteworthy product integrations include last year’s Google Music Search integration and the Local Concerts App, which is currently the most downloaded concerts app for the iPhone and was featured in one of Apple’s latest iPhone TV spots.

Please join us in thanking Ali and Hadi for their contributions to MySpace.

-Jason & Mike

(Full disclosure: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100420/like-boomtown-said-partovi-brothers-finally-leave-myspace/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100311/myspace-musical-chairs-will-the-partovis-stay-or-will-they-go-now/ http://allthingsd.com/20100311/myspace-musical-chairs-will-the-partovis-stay-or-will-they-go-now/#comments Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:11:06 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=25497

While there have surely been a lot of departures of talent at MySpace over the last year, including two major shifts in top management, one of the more interesting guessing games of late concerning the social networking company has been over the fate of well-known tech wunderkinds Hadi and Ali Partovi.

According to many sources inside and outside the company, that’s just the discussion the pair of serial entrepreneurs has been having with its newest leaders, as well as with News Corp. (NWS) digital head Jon Miller.

(News Corp. owns MySpace, as well as Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

In all likelihood, said sources, the Partovis will remain at MySpace for the next several months, although they are likely to move eventually to more senior advisory or special-project roles there in order to pursue longtime outside investing and entrepreneurial interests.

“They’re definitely staying for now,” said one source. “But it’s the ‘how’ is what’s being worked out.”

There are many shifting scenarios as the sides hash it out, said sources, but MySpace execs are keenly interested in avoiding the appearance that the company is in the grip of a talent drain, especially with such high-profile innovators.

Still, in an interview with BoomTown at MySpace’s Beverly Hills, Calif., HQ earlier this week (you can see part of that chat in the video below), Co-President Jason Hirschhorn said that there are likely to be a lot more departures at the company, as well as arrivals.

“It’s normal in a situation like this,” said Hirschhorn, quite correctly, given the wringer MySpace has gone through over the last year.

The Partovis arrived in the midst of turbulent change at MySpace, after its original CEO and co-founder, Chris DeWolfe, was suddenly tossed out and replaced by CEO Owen Van Natta, as well as COO Michael Jones and Chief Product Officer Hirschhorn.

As part of its new strategy to become an entertainment hub, MySpace bought the Partovis’ struggling social music start-up, iLike, last summer in a deal engineered by Van Natta.

After it closed, Hadi (pictured left) became an SVP of technology, mostly working in MySpace’s Seattle office, and Ali (pictured right) became its SVP of business development, mostly based in San Francisco.

But Van Natta suddenly got the boot in January, after clashing with Miller, as well as Hirschhorn and Jones, sending MySpace into yet another storm.

Hirschhorn and Jones were then named co-presidents.

While several sources said the Partovis are not unhappy with the pair or with the new MySpace media-centric strategy, the brothers sold the company with the idea of working with Van Natta.

“That firing reset things,” said one source close to the situation.

In addition, the pair have wide-ranging interests outside the company, including an active investment portfolio in such start-ups as Facebook, Dropbox, Opower, BlueKai and Flixster.

They have also already scored big with investments in Tellme, which was sold to Microsoft (MSFT); Zappos, which was acquired by Amazon (AMZN); and IronPort, now owned by Cisco (CSCO).

And though iLike was not the success they had hoped for, their entrepreneurial record is strong. Ali Partovi sold LinkExchange to Microsoft, and Hadi Partovi, who also worked at Microsoft, co-founded Tellme.

That said, with talent-retention packages in place for both Partovis, and good will between them and the new leaders, the sides are trying to come up with a workable arrangement.

MySpace declined to comment, but The Clash sure will (as well as Jones and Hirschhorn, below):

[T-shirt photo courtesy of Zazzle.com]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100311/myspace-musical-chairs-will-the-partovis-stay-or-will-they-go-now/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20100301/series-seed-documents-with-a-big-assist-from-andreessen-horowitz-set-to-launch-to-help-entrepreneurs-with-legal-hairballs/ http://allthingsd.com/20100301/series-seed-documents-with-a-big-assist-from-andreessen-horowitz-set-to-launch-to-help-entrepreneurs-with-legal-hairballs/#comments Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:03:48 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=24896 Series Seed Documents, templated documents for entrepreneurs to use for seed-stage deals, will be launched today, part of an effort by Silicon Valley lawyer Ted Wang and pushed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

The point: So new entrepreneurs don’t waste time and money negotiating often unnecessarily complex legal papers.

Series Seed Documents was planning its announcement tonight, after briefing reporters. But BoomTown was alerted to the move by a tweet last week from Fenwick & West lawyer Wang that read: “Excited about launching Series Seed documents next week.”

Oops!

The Twitter post has since been taken down (but here is an image of it, below, natch!).

“Who even knew that a corporate attorney would have a Twitter account?” joked Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz in an interview this morning.

Actually, Wang (pictured here) is Twitter’s lawyer!

His practice, which focuses on representation of “emerging companies,” as noted on his Fenwick & West Web site, also includes Aardvark, Billshrink, Clicker, Facebook, Flixster and Widgetbox.

Andreessen Horowitz, which was the first to agree to use Series Seed Documents, will be joined by a spate of high-profile angel and early-stage investors.

The group includes SV Angel’s Ron Conway, First Round Capital, “micro-cap” investor Mike Maples, SoftTechVC’s Jeff Clavier, True Ventures, Polaris Ventures, Charles River Ventures and Harrison Metal.

“We want to make the process as transparent as possible, which is to say, we want to take all the mystery out it,” said Andreessen. “And it is online for everyone to understand.”

Of course, noted Andreessen, the price for the round is still open to negotiation, but wrangling over typically standard legal issues often hurts deals.

“The big reason we are doing it is that we think for these early stage round, bashing over these terms does damage only brings mistrust,” he said.

Andreessen noted that this template approach is only appropriate for small, early rounds of about $500,000 to $1 million.

“VCs who do angel rounds should be acting like a VC in a VC round and acting like an angel in an angel round,” he said. “The problems come when VCs act like VCs in angel rounds.”

Andreessen said using Series Seed Documents would cost start-ups about $7,000 compared with a low of $15,000 and up to $100,000 in many similar deals.

“It helps streamline the process and makes starting a company easier and more efficient,” said Conway of SV Angel, who is a well-known angel investor. “And cheaper–all in all, it is a benefit to both the entrepreneur and the investor.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100301/series-seed-documents-with-a-big-assist-from-andreessen-horowitz-set-to-launch-to-help-entrepreneurs-with-legal-hairballs/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20100108/the-flixster-dudes-talk-about-rotten-tomatoes-deal-and-more/ http://allthingsd.com/20100108/the-flixster-dudes-talk-about-rotten-tomatoes-deal-and-more/#comments Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:30:48 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=22737

Last week, right after Flixster announced it had acquired Rotten Tomatoes from News Corp. (NWS) in exchange for a stake in the combined pair, BoomTown visited its HQ in San Francisco.

Bringing together the social movie site with one that provides premium movie reviews, said Flixster execs, will make the site a must for both consumers and advertisers.

At least that’s the hope.

Here’s my video interview with Flixster co-founder and CEO Joe Greenstein, co-founder and CTO Saran Chari and COO Steve Polsky in which they talk about the deal and where the companies are headed (mobile? television?):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100108/the-flixster-dudes-talk-about-rotten-tomatoes-deal-and-more/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100104/apple-event-slated-for-jan-27/ http://allthingsd.com/20100104/apple-event-slated-for-jan-27/#comments Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:00:01 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=31510

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100104/apple-event-slated-for-jan-27/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100104/first-ma-of-2010-flixster-rotten-tomatoes/ http://allthingsd.com/20100104/first-ma-of-2010-flixster-rotten-tomatoes/#comments Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:08:15 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=14682

Here’s the Flixster/MySpace deal Kara Swisher sussed out on Christmas Eve: News Corp. is handing over its Rotten Tomatoes movie review site, previously owned by its IGN unit, to the movie-centric social network and will get an equity stake in the combined company.

MySpace COO Michael Jones approves, which is good, since the Flixster/Rotten Tomatoes combo is supposed to link directly into MySpace.

This is part of News Corp.’s (NWS) turnaround/shape-up strategy for MySpace and the rest of its digital portfolio, which looked very valuable just a few years ago and is now in need of an overhaul. The media company is shedding noncore assets while trying to turn MySpace into a hub for entertainment that you share with your pals. Expect to see more announcements and product rollouts in the coming weeks.

From Swisher’s 12/24 story:

Several sources noted that this deal being contemplated is typical of the overall strategy at News Corp., which has been targeting digital units that are not an obvious fit inside the company any longer for sale or other disposition.

In fact, the deal is not unlike one News Corp. did recently, flipping photo-sharing Photobucket into mobile photo service Ontela, with the media giant holding a large equity position in the the new entity.

The possibility of linking MySpace and the combined social movie site is interesting and yet another signal of one of the new strategies of MySpace: “Playing on other platforms,” as one source described it.

For example, MySpace recently announced it was adding its data stream to real-time search results on Google (GOOG).

And, it seems dead obvious that MySpace is likely to adopt Facebook Connect sooner than later, perhaps beginning with a smaller implementation early next year.

Disclosure: News Corp. owns this Web site.

Here’s the official press release:

Flixster Inc. Acquires Rotten Tomatoes
From IGN Entertainment

Combination of Top Brands Creates a Leader in the? Online Movie Space, Reaching 30 Million Monthly Moviegoers; IGN to Receive Equity Stake in Flixster

SAN FRANCISCO (January 4, 2010)–Flixster Inc., producer of the world’s largest online movie community at www.Flixster.com, today announced that it has acquired Rotten Tomatoes from IGN Entertainment. IGN, a division of News Corporation, will receive a minority equity stake in Flixster as part of the acquisition. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The combination of Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes reaches a huge global movie audience of an estimated 30 million monthly visitors worldwide across multiple platforms: on the Internet, through web-based social networks, and via mobile apps for the iPhone, Blackberry and Android devices.

Both Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes will continue to be available to movie fans as individual properties. Together, Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes give movie audiences an unprecedented total picture of movie trends and opinions, combining half a million reviews from leading critics with 2.3 billion user ratings and reviews.

“To use movie terminology, we think this is a blockbuster double-bill,” said Joe Greenstein, co-founder and CEO of Flixster. “It’s a huge step forward in our goal of connecting users to their own personalized world of movies on any platform they choose. We can’t think of a better pairing for movie fans and our technology partners.”

Flixster’s president and COO Steve Polsky added, “Rotten Tomatoes has built a fantastically well-known brand that moviegoers trust when making their decisions. Combined with Flixster’s social networking and word-of-mouth, we’re creating the leading movie destination on the Internet.”

“Joining Rotten Tomatoes with Flixster creates a company that can dominate the online movie category,” said Roy Bahat, president of IGN Entertainment, who will join Flixster’s board of directors as an observer. “This also enables IGN to focus on serving the male 18-to-34 audience–especially videogamers–and the advertisers looking to reach them.”

Flixster already operates the leading embedded movie applications on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, iGoogle, and for the iPhone, Android devices, Blackberry and Palm Pre. Together, Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes will be the most comprehensive, one-stop movie-information provider for both end users and technology partners, including: a database of more than 250,000 movies; 2.3 billion user reviews; 500,000 critic reviews; more than 20,000 trailers and videos; the well-known Tomatometer™ and Flixster Scores; unique movie news and editorial content; category-leading social-networking features; localized movie showtime information; theater maps; and online ticketing.

Prior to the acquisition, Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes partnered in several areas, including a recent deal that syndicates critic reviews from Rotten Tomatoes to Flixster’s online movie community, both on the Web and via Flixster’s mobile apps.

Since its inception in early 2006, Flixster has rapidly become the Web’s largest community for movie fans, with more than 20 million monthly users.

As the web’s leading aggregator of reviews from top movie critics, Rotten Tomatoes offers the most comprehensive guide to movies, and its Tomatometer™ rating-based on the published opinions of hundreds of film critics–is a trusted measurement of movie quality for millions of moviegoers. The site has also seen tremendous year-over year growth, with its monthly unique user base rising on average nearly 40 percent in each of the past five months compared to the same months in 2008.

The deal follows a series of moves by IGN Entertainment to refocus its efforts on building out its suite of game-related and men’s-lifestyle offerings. The company recently launched Game On, a videogames-dedicated portal on MSN, and its network of sites currently reaches the most concentrated audience of males 18 to 34 and technology influencers on the Web today.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100104/first-ma-of-2010-flixster-rotten-tomatoes/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091224/the-flixsterrotten-tomatoesmyspace-mystery-solved-a-christmas-miracle/ http://allthingsd.com/20091224/the-flixsterrotten-tomatoesmyspace-mystery-solved-a-christmas-miracle/#comments Thu, 24 Dec 2009 21:11:18 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=22427

About 10 days ago, there was a post in this column about interest by News Corp. and its MySpace unit in Flixster, the popular social networking site for movies.

In the post, titled “MySpace and News Corp. Eye Flixster (But for What?),” I wrote:

Whether this is an acquisition or more of a larger partnership deal with News Corp. digital entertainment sites is unclear. Several sources said a purchase was a possibility, while others talked about a more complex deal that did not necessarily mean a purchase.

Sources said any such deal is not imminent, but that News Corp. (NWS) itself has been conducting extensive due diligence on the San Francisco-based Flixster, part of a plan to combine it with Rotten Tomatoes, another News Corp.-owned site run by its IGN Entertainment division.

Well, BoomTown did more gumshoeing and it is indeed shaping up to be a very complex deal, according to many sources I spoke with, centered on Rotten Tomatoes merging with Flixster in exchange for a stake in the combined independent company by News Corp.

Flixster has attracted a huge audience–upward of 50 million–which trades all kinds of recommendations, ratings, news and even post user-generated movie reviews on the Web site and via widgets on social networking sites, mostly on Facebook.

Founded in 2006 by CEO Joe Greenstein and CTO Saran Chari, Flixster has raised $7 million in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Pinnacle Ventures, as well as garnering an angel investment from Silicon Valley entrepreneur and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.

Rotten Tomatoes features mostly premium content, including professional reviews, trailer videos and news. It has a community feature in beta, so it would be a nice fit with Flixster.

In addition, in a separate but related deal, the resulting company could have its social, user-generated and premium content threaded throughout MySpace, which is in the midst of transforming itself from a social networking site into a social media site for music and other kinds of entertainment.

Several sources noted that this deal being contemplated is typical of the overall strategy at News Corp., which has been targeting digital units that are not an obvious fit inside the company any longer for sale or other disposition.

In fact, the deal is not unlike one News Corp. did recently, flipping photo-sharing Photobucket into mobile photo service Ontela, with the media giant holding a large equity position in the the new entity.

The possibility of linking MySpace and the combined social movie site is interesting and yet another signal of one of the new strategies of MySpace: “Playing on other platforms,” as one source described it.

For example, MySpace recently announced it was adding its data stream to real-time search results on Google (GOOG).

And, it seems dead obvious that MySpace is likely to adopt Facebook Connect sooner than later, perhaps beginning with a smaller implementation early next year.

Focusing less on Facebook, which has long surpassed the once high-flying MySpace as the top-of-mind social network, MySpace is likely to value the massive cross-distribution for its much richer media content.

But that’s not all for MySpace, said several sources, all of whom noted that the site will be rolling out a range of significant design and other feature initiatives over the next 45 to 60 days.

These are all aimed by its new managers at juicing MySpace’s prospects, which have declined over the last several years, as have both revenue and engagement with consumers.

“This is not a rocket-ship ride to the moon,” said one person with knowledge of the situation. “It’s building again step by step.”

A Flixster spokesman declined to comment, as did News Corp. I am awaiting a call back from MySpace’s spokeswoman, but she is stuck in a security line at the airport.

Happy holidays, anyway, Dani!

(Full disclosure: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091224/the-flixsterrotten-tomatoesmyspace-mystery-solved-a-christmas-miracle/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20091214/exclusive-myspace-eyes-flixster-for-acquisition/ http://allthingsd.com/20091214/exclusive-myspace-eyes-flixster-for-acquisition/#comments Tue, 15 Dec 2009 01:12:11 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=21949

[UPDATED]

Now that the digital equivalent of a super-vac, MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta, has sucked up some decent music start-ups–Imeem and iLike–for a song, to bolster the social networking site’s efforts to expand into an entertainment portal, what’s next?

According to several sources, the News Corp. (NWS) unit has turned its omnivorous attentions to Flixster, the popular social networking site for movies.

Whether this is an acquisition or more of a larger partnership deal with News Corp. digital entertainment sites is unclear. Several sources said a purchase was a possibility, while others talked about a more complex deal that did not necessarily mean a purchase.

Sources said any such deal is not imminent, but that News Corp. itself has been conducting extensive due diligence on the San Francisco-based Flixster, part of a plan to combine it with Rotten Tomatoes, another News Corp.-owned site run by its IGN Entertainment division.

Rotten Tomatoes features mostly premium content, including professional reviews, trailer videos and news. It has community feature that is just in beta, so it would be a nice fit with Flixster.

A MySpace spokeswoman declined to comment at the moment.

In 2007, the start-up was close to being acquired by IAC/InteractiveCorp (IACI) for $100 million, several sources said. But the deal went south when CEO Barry Diller changed his mind at the last minute.

Founded in 2006 by CEO Joe Greenstein and CTO Saran Chari, Flixster has raised $7 million in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Pinnacle Ventures, as well as garnering an angel investment from Silicon Valley entrepreneur and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.

Flixster has attracted a huge audience–upward of 50 million–who trade all kinds of recommendations, ratings, news and even post user-generated movie reviews on its Web site and via widgets on social networking sites, mostly on Facebook.

While Amazon (AMZN) unit IMDb (Internet Movie Database) is still larger in terms of traffic, the more innovative Flixster has been growing much faster and is more social, which makes it attractive to MySpace, sources said.

More important is the mobile growth. Flixster is the No. 1 movie app on Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and leads on other smartphones too.

(Full disclosure: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091214/exclusive-myspace-eyes-flixster-for-acquisition/feed/ 11 http://allthingsd.com/20080507/microsofts-project-granola-facebook-tastier-than-yahoo/ http://allthingsd.com/20080507/microsofts-project-granola-facebook-tastier-than-yahoo/#comments Wed, 07 May 2008 09:02:15 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080507/microsofts-project-granola-facebook-tastier-than-yahoo/

Project Granola?

Apparently, that’s the jokey nickname that’s been given by some in the company to Microsoft’s (MSFT) new online strategy, in the wake of its failed efforts to acquire Yahoo (YHOO) that ended in a big heap of mess this past weekend.

Now, sources tell BoomTown, it is all about “organic”–hence the image of a healthy handful of granola (except for the fact that, in my experience, nobody really likes granola after eating it as much as they think will before).

In any case, it is a word Microsoft folks have been slipping into the conversations with BoomTown over the past few days, so much so that I have started to feel like I was talking to execs from Whole Foods.

Now Microsoft’s greenness has gone public.

Case in point: Brian Hall, Windows Live General Manager, who trotted out the organic word in front of Merrill Lynch analysts yesterday, as reported by CNET’s Ina Fried, saying: “We’ve withdrawn the offer and moved on, and now are focused on how we grow as fast as possible organically.”

But what does organic mean exactly?

Two things, it seems.

First, stepping up spending on marketing, technology and research to try to find ways to differentiate from Google (GOOG) and get into the No. 2 spot now held by Yahoo.

Of course, that plan has not worked out so well as yet for the software giant, with Microsoft spending billions of dollars with no profits and little gain in online search or ad market share, while its archrival Google keeps growing stronger.

Even so, while in Korea today, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates backed Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s do-it-yourself path and his move to walk away from Yahoo.

“The key decisions on that will be made by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who took a look at Yahoo and decided that, on our own, he likes the stuff that we’re doing,” said Gates.

Gates also added what amounts to the second option for Microsoft. “I wouldn’t rule out some partnerships, but we don’t have anything imminent there,” he said.

While a return to Yahoo is a possibility, in fact, buying up Web 2.0 stars is likely to be a bigger focus of the company.

“Yahoo can twist,” said one source. “Microsoft has lots and lots of other options.”

According to sources close to the company, for example, Microsoft’s bankers had been putting out subtle signals to Facebook to see if it would be open to a full buyout.

Microsoft already invested $240 million in the hot social-networking site, an investment that gave Facebook its kooky $15 billion valuation.

And its execs have long told Facebook execs they wouldn’t mind a bigger bite–um, like all of it.

“We just wanted to gauge their interest, more than any real effort,” said another source, who expects Facebook to stick to its longish path to an eventual IPO.

But, as is no secret, Microsoft has selections all over Silicon Valley to help it improve its Internet chances.

Those would include buying bigger vertical sites in strong categories like autos or jobs or finance, and also scooping up smaller but fast-growing socially oriented sites like Digg, Meebo, Yelp or focusing on ad plays like Spot Runner (which just got another big dollop of funding).

There might even be some sense in spinning some of these and all Microsoft Web units off into a separate Internet company, which would be another way of integrating even bigger deals for properties like Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL or News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace (which are longer shots, I think).

In a post I did in February right after Yahoo rebuffed Microsoft for the first time, I suggested such a course for the company.

As I wrote:

Here’s a list: LinkedIn. Digg. Flixster. Slide or RockYou. Veoh. WordPress. Sphere. Sugar. Some international stuff. And more.

Then, some noted, Microsoft would have to give massive financial incentives to those entrepreneurs to stay and thrive. Most importantly, it would have to keep its Redmond hands from interfering.

Now that would send shivers up the spine of Larry and Sergey.”

And that, most of all, would be more like icing on the cake for Microsoft and be much more tasty than a bowl full of granola.

And, as Martha Stewart says: It’s a good thing.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080507/microsofts-project-granola-facebook-tastier-than-yahoo/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20071204/flixster-for-sale-again/ http://allthingsd.com/20071204/flixster-for-sale-again/#comments Tue, 04 Dec 2007 09:49:26 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20071204/flixster-for-sale-again/

Yesterday, a source told me that Flixster, the fast-growing social network for movie lovers, was back in talks to be bought by Barry Diller’s InterActiveCorp.

Those IAC-Flixster rumors flew about a month ago and were entirely true.

But no deal, it seems. IAC has apparently found the price too high, according to other sources. But, said these sources, others are still in the game.

So if an acquisition deal does happen, two intelligent guesses to the possible winner for the company with 39.5 million user home pages, more than 1 billion user-generated movie ratings and a sassy motto of “Stop Watching Bad Movies”?

Blockbuster or News Corp.

(Sources said Viacom’s MTV unit gave Flixster a look too, but also thought the price too high.)

The former because the video-rental chain has been mightily trying to break into all kinds of Web markets to give it a place to sell online. Blockbuster has been struggling of late, because of its costly battles with Web sites like Netflix and the growth of video-on-demand and movie downloads via the Internet and cable. Its online subscribership is only 3.1 million.

And the latter, because such a site tucks in nicely with some of the media giant’s properties like MySpace and Rotten Tomatoes, as well as its numerous movie and television arms. (FYI, News Corp. is in the process of acquiring Dow Jones, which is the owner of this site.)

The price? I will wager $150 million in cash that had been previously bandied about, although IAC’s offer was likely much lower than that.

Pricey, yes, since Flixster only has 17 employees and was created less than two years ago. It received $2 million in funding in February from Lightspeed Venture Partners.

But its vibrant Web site is booming and is now one of the largest movie sites on the Internet. Flixster is also one of the more popular widgets on Facebook, with more than 800,000 active daily users.

While Amazon-owned IMDb (Internet Movie Database) is larger in terms of traffic, Flixster is growing much faster.

On the site, users have profiles typical of most general social networks, with a laser-focus on movies, actors, directors and movie quizzes and news. Flixster also has video content, both professional and user-generated and relies heavily on user reviews.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20071204/flixster-for-sale-again/feed/ 0