Now Bamboom is called Aereo, and it is backed by Barry Diller and/or his IAC Web holding company. But the concept appears to be the same: The service will let users stream broadcast TV stations to their Internet-connected devices, wherever they are.

We’ll know more Tuesday, when the service hosts a press event at Diller’s IAC headquarters in Manhattan. Press materials promoting the event describe Diller as a “minority investor” in Aereo, but don’t say whether he’s backing the company personally, or if he has put IAC’s money into the service. I asked IAC for clarification, but they referred me back to Aereo.

Financing aside, a more fundamental question about Aereo would be: Who is the market for this thing?

Aereo uses a Rube Goldberg-like system involving huge arrays of teeny-tiny broadcast TV antennas to give each user their own personal live TV stream. That’s a system created to take advantage of the legal umbrella that Cablevision’s remote DVR has earned — and one that Google and Amazon used to create their music locker services without approval from the big labels last year, too.

That’s clever, but it won’t do anything to help someone who wants to watch Monday Night Football on their iPad. Because Monday Night Football airs on Disney’s ESPN cable channel.

I assume that Aereo CEO Chaitanya Kanojia will explain tomorrow that a large percentage of TV viewing is confined to the broadcast networks like ABC, Fox, CBS and NBC, and I’m sure he’s right. But that explanation won’t satisfy someone who thought they could use the service to watch CNN or Bravo or Lifetime or whatever, and then finds out it won’t work.

So, yes, you could describe Aereo as “cord-cutting” technology — which is the way the service’s PR folks are describing it in their invitations — because it will help you watch TV without a cable subscription.

But it won’t help you watch shows you used to watch on cable, which I think is what most people expect from a service with that description. A better description would be: “A service that’s interesting but limited by itself, but if coupled with other things — say, an ‘over the top’ Web video subscription service — could get more interesting.”

More later. For now, here’s the old Bamboom explainer video, which isn’t as slick as the new Aereo video, and which touts an integration with Netflix that the new video doesn’t mention. But it is embeddable:

Andy Smith, CEO of IAC-owned DailyBurn, says that the benefit of fitness-tracking tools goes away after the first few weeks, and users ultimately fall into the same activity — or inactivity — patterns as before.

“They do help a small subset of people,” Smith said. “You find that there are type-A personalities that like to track everything, and that’s great. For others, it might give them a little jump start. But the value proposition of those devices after the first few weeks goes way down.”

DailyBurn is a fitness-data-tracking company that is now focusing on fitness content. The company pivoted partly because data-tracking wasn’t all that effective, Smith said.

Last week, Nike introduced a $150 lightweight wristband with a tri-axis accelerometer for gauging activity levels; earlier this week, Fitbit — maker of the popular Fitbit device — announced that it had raised $12 million in Series C funding to continue making fitness products.

Nike’s FuelBand just became available for preorder, so it’s too early to tell how enthusiastic consumers are about that particular device. And while it’s unclear how many Fitbit units have sold since it hit the market in 2009, the newer Fitbit Ultra is listed as one of the top 50 products in the health-and-fitness section on Amazon.com.

Another wearable fitness device, the Jawbone UP, is currently in production limbo as the company deals with technical and hardware issues, but the wristband was initially received with excitement from some consumers.

“I feel like these are not quite a gimmick, but are close to it,” Smith told AllThingsD. “You get people to spend $100 to $150 bucks on something that’s just a glorified accelerometer — which, by the way, you have in your phone, too.”

“I think people know when they’re not active,” Smith added. “They know if they didn’t move around enough today. I don’t buy it.”

Smith’s opinion is informed by the fact that DailyBurn used to be more data-oriented, but has since shifted its strategy become more content-focused, he said.

DailyBurn first launched in 2008 under the name Gyminee. Back then, the company was tailored more toward fitness data tracking and the sharing of data through social networks to help users meet their weight loss goals.

In May 2010, the company was acquired by IAC. At the time, the company claimed 500,000 members; Smith said it has around two million users now.

Following the acquisition, DailyBurn introduced the DailyBurn Tracker app, as well as food-tracking app Meal Snap, an attempt to spur weight loss motivation by giving caloric estimates based on photos of food.

Ultimately, Smith said, constant tracking isn’t necessarily the best way to facilitate that.

With DailyBurn’s newest fitness product — a personalized Web video program that streams over smartphones and the iPad to users’ TV sets — the company is focused on getting people to exercise four to six times a week, for 30 minutes a day, at a good level of intensity. It’s not something you buy that’s a quick fix, Smith said.

Readers, what are your thoughts? Are health-and-fitness tracking devices useful or useless?

As the father of eight kids — now all between the ages of 12 and 21 — he knows a thing or two about the importance of finding the perfect place. (Note: Kaufer delicately calls family trips “adventures,” while getaways with his wife are “vacations.”)

Since then, TripAdvisor has become the online go-to destination for reviews of hotels from Barbados to bed-and-breakfasts in New York City.

In 2004, Kaufer sold the company to IAC for $210 million, setting off a somewhat complicated operating journey. A year later, TripAdvisor spun out of IAC as part of Expedia. It remained a division within the online travel agency until last month, when it broke off into an independent publicly held company.

Today, the Newton, Mass.-based company has 1,100 employees, attracts more than 50 million unique visitors and has published more than 60 million reviews. It trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “TRIP,” while Expedia continues to trade under the symbol “EXPE.”

Kaufer talked to AllThingsD about being an independently traded company, and about the media company’s prospects for growth:

AllThingsD: What is it like to be out from under Expedia’s wing?

Stephen Kaufer: There was a joke when we were spun out as part of Expedia from IAC. People asked me, “What’s your vision for TripAdvisor?” I would always say, “I want to be bigger than Expedia,” and people’s response always was, “That’s what the little brother might say.”

A year or two ago, we passed Expedia in comScore metrics, and are still experiencing growth. It’s a free service that’s valuable. It’s worldwide. TripAdvisor is in 21 languages, and three-fourths of the traffic comes from outside of the U.S.

Now that you are out from under Expedia, do you have more flexibility on where you send leads that are generated from people reading reviews on TripAdvisor?

Under Expedia, we had no obligation to send traffic to them … That never happened, and we were allowed to run independently. But at the end of the day, they [competitors] knew their marketing spend was going into Expedia’s pocket. That’s the most exciting thing. We are now completely independent. Expedia now owns no stock, so when I talk to Orbitz or Priceline, these folks can now partner with TripAdvisor without any hint of helping to fuel the competitors.

Why the spinoff now?

It was announced back in April, but basically there was a view that there was a class of investors that liked a pure Internet category leader and a fast-growing media company like TripAdvisor, and there’s another class that appreciates Expedia, which is in the dominant online travel agency position.

We were blurring the two when they were together. It gives Wall Street the opportunity to invest in either, and each company will find its own set of investors.

Do you think Wall Street is correctly valuing TripAdvisor? (The stock failed to come roaring out of the gate.)

No. But I’m not complaining. I think Wall Street, over the next couple of quarters, will appreciate how both companies perform as independent companies. The numbers have been a little hidden because they were jumbled together. … They’ve never seen TripAdvisor operate independently. They ask, “What will you do differently? How will things be the same?” Watch us, and I think you’ll like what you see.

Will you grow mostly organically, or through M&A?

We have a good track record on acquisition and product innovation.

The last few acquisitions, you saw a focus on our strategic priorities: A mobile company, a social company, two vacation rental companies and a company in China. Our four key investment areas that we called out are vacation rentals, mobile, social and geographic expansion.

In many ways, TripAdvisor was one of the original social networks, where users shared information on their vacations. Now you see Facebook getting into the space with Facebook Connect and other initiatives, too.

Everyone feels like being able to get travel recommendations from their friends is a natural evolution for getting a better recommendation, period.

There’s a couple of different angles. Some social travel companies are focused on making planning a group trip easier. No site out there has scale and does that well, and we don’t do that now. Facebook is a great platform to do it on, and it may be interesting to us in the future.

Our focus is leveraging the friend graph on Facebook and our rich content to give someone the experience of seeing recommendations or ratings from friends.

We love the concept, and we are furiously building up our own product offering to make it more valuable. If it’s not too early to call someone a leader, we are clearly it, because we have the content and the friend graph. We aren’t a site that’s based on Facebook, which is an advantage, because you can do anyting you want to do on the Web or the tablet or mobile.

What about Google moving into travel?

They have a couple of different approaches. They have Google Places, which reviews everything; and they have Google Hotels, which is a hotel finder; and then Google Flights, to help you find the best fare.

With Google Places, they still can’t seem to generate enough high-quality reviews to be useful. They compete with Yelp and us, and I’ve yet to be concerned. I was concerned about Google Flights — a lot — before they launched, but you cannot book through an online travel agent like Expedia — only directly through the airlines for now.

It’s an incomplete product, so I still use TripAdvisor flights, or go to Expedia or Orbitz. They get better results, and maybe aren’t as fast, but more information is still better.

They say they want to include online travel agents, but the airlines won’t let them. … Don’t mistake my tone for being sympathetic to Google on this one.

What about vacation rentals? HomeAway went public last year.

After HomeAway, there’s not that much.

We agree it’s a great market, and it deserves to be online. It helps consumers and there’s a need to bring a trust element into the equation. Folks who have tried it have liked (renting homes), and a whole lot of people haven’t tried it, because a hotel is all they’ve ever tried.

If they are reading hotel reviews, but I see that you are trying to stay seven nights in Orlando, I might say, “Did you know that you might be able to save money and get a private swimming pool?” They never would have thought of that as an opportunity, but there’s lots of great opportunities in Orlando and tons of other cities.

HomeAway dominates the category, but there’s plenty of room for a second, third and fourth.

I’m surprised that already three-fourths of your traffic comes from outside the U.S.

Yes, and that portion is growing. We have offices all over the globe, and our biggest investment opportunity is in China. We purchased a metasearch site for air, hotel and train in China. We view international growth as a tailwind to the business.

So what’s your price target for the stock? It’s currently trading around $25 a share.

I’m looking at how I can grow the business over the long term, and that’s why we are making some of these investments. I might be ahead of it, or other folks ahead of me, but I’m a nuts-and-bolts operator. I like to build stuff, and getting TripAdvisor to the next level of functionality and awareness is my priority — not the stock price.

Users were told today via email that the service would close Jan. 31, and were offered a data export tool.

Proust had been one of the emerging efforts to create a more personal and meaningful social network. Those kinds of services turn out to be especially hard to grow.

Here’s IAC’s statement on the matter:

Since its launch in 2010, Proust slowly gained users but did not result in an associated revenue substantial enough to maintain operations. We explored several strategic options for Proust, but decided that the best option was to fold its assets into IAC.

For his part, Proust co-founder and CEO Tom Cortese said in an email he was “totally bummed.”

Proust had only formally launched in July 2011. Here’s what I wrote at the time:

The company name is a reference to the French writer Marcel Proust, who famously (to some people, at least!) answered probing questions about himself in what’s come to be known as the Proust Questionnaire.

“On the social Web today we share trivial stuff, but why not go deeper, especially with people you’re closer to,” explained Proust CEO Tom Cortese in a recent interview.

Proust divides life experiences into chapters, presenting users with more than a thousand questions to get them telling their personal stories. Users can choose, quite simply, to make their answers public or private to only their contacts. They can also view their life histories as a map or timeline.

Alternatives to Proust include Path and Storytree. Oh, and Facebook Timeline!

It’s the typically newsless time around Christmas and New Year’s, but for once there has actually been a lot going on at Yahoo.

Last week, the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s typically moribund board decided to move ahead with negotiations to sell part of its stake in China’s Alibaba Group, as well as all of its shares in Yahoo Japan.

While that is still not a done deal, it adds clarity to the Yahoo mishegas, as current leaders there seek to turn around the company’s lagging fortunes.

Now, as Yahoo continues to contemplate a pair of partial investment bids by private equity firms Silver Lake and TPG Capital into 2012, more focus will be on the selection of a CEO candidate to take over, sources said.

While I have floated some names that have been contemplated — such as Hulu CEO Jason Kilar, Juniper CEO Kevin Johnson, former aQuantive and Microsoft exec Brian McAndrews, and board member David Kenny — I have collected some more that seem to be getting the once-over and are being mentioned internally as well as externally.

Sources said that the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee at Yahoo, which is run by independent director Patti Hart, has been looking for someone with definite public company experience, as well as expertise in large-scale management.

As to talent, candidates seem to be either good at running big platforms, or deeply knowledgeable about advertising and media as well as technology.

Another important criteria, said sources: Someone who is “collaborative” and nonconfrontational. As in, not like the former and very pugnacious CEO Carol Bartz, who was fired in September.

Thus, here’s another trio of candidates to consider, while we wait — and who knows how long that will be given that the Asian activity could have tired out for a bit this usually slow-moving board:

Chris Liddell: The former CFO of Microsoft is an interesting name that just popped up recently, and it makes some sense when you think about the possible mindset of the Yahoo board.

Liddell, who has a charming New Zealand accent, did a short stint, from January of 2010 to March of this year, as CFO at General Motors. Recently married to another former Microsoft exec, he has since been living in New York.

He apparently loves living in the Big Apple.

But when he left GM, Liddell made it clear he wanted to go for a top job next. He was among the candidates for a recent search for a CEO of Time Warner’s Time Inc. (an effort that was run by exec search firm Heidrick & Struggles, which is also conducting the Yahoo hunt).

Known as tough and decisive, he certainly is qualified to deal with complex financial situations, such as the one in which Yahoo now finds itself knee-deep. One knock: Little product or advertising experience.

Laura Desmond: While certainly a dark horse, Desmond has been queried by Heidrick, said several sources.

She is CEO of Starcom MediaVest Group, a subsidiary of Publicis, one of the largest media planning and buying agencies, making Desmond one of advertising’s most prominent players.

Well-known in Yahoo’s key market, she is considered a savvy and smart exec with a wry sense of humor.

I happen to particularly like one line from one of her bios:

“Ms. Desmond’s career has been driven by two caveats: Take intelligent risks and learn more from failure than from success.”

She could learn a lot at Yahoo. (I know, easy jab, but it works!)

David Rosenblatt: The former DoubleClick CEO, who went on to a big ad job at Google after it paid $3.2 billion for the company, is also a long shot, mostly by his own choosing.

The sharp exec is always on the short list of CEO candidates for a lot of big, splashy online jobs, but he seems to want to swim his own way.

Case in point: He was recently named CEO of New York-based 1stdibs, a relatively obscure online marketplace known among antique dealers and interior designers looking for one-of-a-kind furniture, art and lighting.

Yes, that’s right: Fancy lamps.

Rosenblatt also serves on the boards at Group Commerce, Twitter and IAC.

All that Internet ad and e-commerce experience is exactly why Rosenblatt would be one of the better choices for CEO of Yahoo. But, for him, I would guess taking such a job is probably in the life’s-too-short category.

More to come, obvi!

Remedy Health Media, a New York-based health information company, has bought HealthCentral, a start-up that offers online clinical and patient tools, community and content in a variety of topic areas.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the Arlington, Va.-based HealthCentral has raised $50 million from investors such as the Carlyle Group, IAC/InterActiveCorp, Polaris Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital. Allen & Co., which was HealthCentral’s financial adviser for the transaction, was also an investor.

The market for online-based information about health has been a fast-growing one, but it’s still a nascent arena.

Here’s the official press release:

Remedy Health Media Acquires HealthCentral: Creates Industry-Leading Health Information and Technology Platform

NEW YORK, NY – Remedy Health Media, America’s fastest-growing health information and technology company, today announced its acquisition of HealthCentral, a leading provider of online clinical and patient community resources and tools that help millions of patients and caregivers take control of their health and improve their well-being. The acquisition brings together two companies with the shared mission of empowering patients and caregivers with the information and applications needed to efficiently navigate the healthcare landscape to receive better health outcomes. The acquisition is expected to close this week. Terms were not disclosed.

“This acquisition means Remedy now provides the health information industry’s leading portfolio of digital, mobile, and point-of-care information and technology products,” said Remedy Chief Executive Officer, Mike Cunnion.

HealthCentral’s CEO, Christopher M. Schroeder, adds, “This combination creates real opportunities for innovation in an industry segment that is growing rapidly and seeking new solutions. All of us at HealthCentral are very excited that the union of the two companies and the strength, scope, and reach of the new Remedy will be a unique force for better health and wellness.”

With the addition of HealthCentral, Remedy Health Media creates a market-leading platform for healthcare audiences seeking proprietary information and technology to manage their health concerns on their terms as well as marketing partners who want to connect with patients and caregivers on a number of platforms: online, in doctors’ offices, pharmacies, and through their mobile devices. The new Remedy Health Media will influence more than 150 million consumers annually. The company’s reach now includes 23 million unique monthly visitors to its health websites, more than 17 million patients and caregivers at pharmacy counters nationwide, a 20-million member customer database, and a network of more than 600,000 physicians.

“With the acquisition of HealthCentral, we’ve dramatically increased our online reach, sales capacity and our ability to create industry leading health information and technology applications,” notes Cunnion. “The combination creates exciting opportunities to provide even more value to our audiences, customers and strategic partners.”

Remedy Health Media is a Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS) company; a leading global private investment firm focused on the information, education, media, communications and business services industries. “Communications growth will be driven by the convergence of technologies in digital and mobile platforms,” said David Bainbridge, Managing Director, Veronis Suhler Stevenson. “Nowhere is this more evident than in the health and wellness sector where the ability to access accurate information is paramount.”

HealthCentral is backed by leading interactive media and technology investors IAC/InterActiveCorp, Polaris Ventures, Sequoia Capital, The Carlyle Group and Allen & Company. Notes Alan Spoon of Polaris Ventures, “We are thrilled to join forces with Mike and the Remedy team. This combination is a unique opportunity to create the largest and most innovative platform for health seekers looking to take action on their terms, and connecting them with our partners and clients.”

Schroeder will remain involved in the business as a consultant to Remedy and the board of directors, and has been named an Advisor to Polaris Ventures.

Imposing signage at OkCupid Labs

After OkCupid was bought by IAC’s Match.com for $50 million in February, co-founder and CEO Sam Yagan says he was inspired to try to make corporate entrepreneurship work within the IAC fold.

Figuring out how to make more money for Barry Diller (as Yagan put it himself!) doesn’t sound nearly as sexy or fun as Yagan’s previous projects: Dating, the smart study guides SparkNotes, or the P2P app eDonkey.

But maybe that’s because the blank slate has yet to be filled in. OkCupid Labs last week opened an office in San Francisco’s SOMA district, and allowed me to visit a late afternoon beer-and-brainstorming stand-up session. Then I chatted with Yagan, and taped a video about what he’s trying to do:

The idea is to launch lots of projects, giving Labs employees “a safety net with an equity upside,” as Yagan put it. He said he aims to give his team the flexibility to do what it wants, and millions of dollars to try to make it happen.

Yagan, who said he “lives” in Chicago, and commutes to OkCupid in New York and Match in Dallas, is now adding San Francisco to the list. He reports to IAC CEO Greg Blatt.

Yagan said he’s hired a dozen idea people, most of whom have never worked in online dating (though one guy was at OkCupid competitor Zoosk).

The intent is to help them brainstorm their way into the next big thing, whether it be through a new dating business, or (perhaps more likely) a way to bring people together that’s not explicitly dating.

Yagan said he thinks there’s plenty more opportunity in dating, but perhaps not in targeting that same existing audience of online daters that all the services are fighting over. That’s where the new hires come in. “I’ve been doing this for eight years; I’m out of ideas,” Yagan said, half joking.

 

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111118/okcupid-sets-up-san-francisco-labs-to-try-to-reinvent-online-dating-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111114/iacs-crowded-room-app-will-help-you-meet-people-and-maybe-date-them/ http://allthingsd.com/20111114/iacs-crowded-room-app-will-help-you-meet-people-and-maybe-date-them/#comments Mon, 14 Nov 2011 12:00:53 +0000 Liz Gannes http://allthingsd.com/?p=143644 In many ways, a new local social app called Crowded Room feels and functions like Foursquare. But instead of being about finding new places, it’s about finding new people.

Crowded Room — which was developed inside of the mega-Internet conglomerate IAC and is available for iPhone, Android and HTML5 — fits into the category of social discovery apps. It helps users find people to befriend and date, based on the venues they check in at and plan to go to.

Crowded Room users — who are generally shown with a profile picture, first name and age — get a personalized list of suggested people and recommended venues based on their history and interests.

Users can indicate their future plans with a “might go” button, which is intended to build critical mass around meeting up at a certain spot. (Other apps — like Ditto, which hasn’t really taken off — have tried similar ideas of future check-ins.)

Crowded Room users can also “shortlist” each other, which is kind of like privately indicating you have a crush on someone. If two users both put each other on their shortlists, they get a notification.

In related news, I recently wrote about Proust, a social journaling service also out of IAC.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111114/iacs-crowded-room-app-will-help-you-meet-people-and-maybe-date-them/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111103/dibs-obscure-tech-company-nabs-former-doubleclick-ceo-david-rosenblatt/ http://allthingsd.com/20111103/dibs-obscure-tech-company-nabs-former-doubleclick-ceo-david-rosenblatt/#comments Thu, 03 Nov 2011 11:00:46 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=139653 David Rosenblatt has been named the CEO of 1stdibs, the relatively obscure online marketplace known among antique dealers and interior designers looking for one-of-a-kind furniture, art and lighting.

The former DoubleClick executive, who sold his company to Google for $3.2 billion, had his pick of high-profile jobs, but instead has landed at a company most people probably have never heard of.

You can be sure that between Rosenblatt’s appointment and an injection of capital from Benchmark, that’s about to change.

Both Rosenblatt and Benchmark’s General Partner Matt Cohler will join the company’s board. Neither 1stdibs nor Cohler would disclose details of the investment.

In an interview, Rosenblatt told me that, unlike DoubleClick, this is not an advertising play.

“What was exciting to me about DoubleClick was that it was an opportunity to usher an industry into the digital age,” he said. “I think we have a comparable opportunity here at 1stdibs in the luxury marketplace. That’s what gets me excited about it. It’s not an ads business.”

The company’s obscurity in tech circles did not dissuade Rosenblatt from the opportunity.

“I have never come across a company that is as unknown among the Internet crowd, but is known as well as it is in its vertical,” he said.

Rosenblatt quoted from a Bain & Company study to highlight the size of the opportunity. It found that only three percent of luxury spending was spent online as of 2009, even though the market size totaled $257 billion in 2010.

Already, Rosenblatt said, 1stdibs’ gross merchandise volume of goods (the value of goods sold by dealers on the site) was set to exceed $500 million in 2011. He said the average price of each item sold is $5,000, which sets it apart from other luxury players, like One Kings Lane and Gilt Groupe, both of which are focused on offering daily discounts for items.

1stdibs plans to expand into more categories and geographies for growth. It has already gone beyond furnishings to real estate, fashion, fine art and jewelry. The company is a marketplace, so it makes money by charging dealers a listing fee to post items on the site. Currently, it has 1,200 dealers, who sell 6,000 items a month. Because dealers and sellers connect directly, similarly to eBay, 1stdibs does not stock inventory or have to manage warehouses.

Rosenblatt said he discovered the company through Benchmark’s Cohler.

Cohler said he learned of the site through his brother, a well-respected interior designer who was helping him decorate his house.

Cohler said that countless items in his house were found on 1stdibs. “I was astonished to see how incredibly powerful it was,” he said.

Ironically, Cohler was able to close the investment with 1stdibs and recruit Rosenblatt faster than it took to redecorate his house, which “is never really done,” he joked.

Cohler said that Rosenblatt’s appointment will lend the company the operational expertise it needs to scale a large Internet company. “I don’t think there’s anyone better in the world to take the company forward,” he added.

The 1stdibs marketplace was founded in 2001 by Michael Bruno, who had the goal of bringing the Paris flea market — famous for its one-of-a-kind items — to the Internet.

Bruno, who Rosenblatt calls a charismatic entrepreneur, will continue to play an active role at the company by working on strategy and consulting directly with customers.

Rosenblatt will continue to sit on the boards of Group Commerce, Twitter and IAC.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111103/dibs-obscure-tech-company-nabs-former-doubleclick-ceo-david-rosenblatt/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111027/youtube-close-to-announcing-video-channels/ http://allthingsd.com/20111027/youtube-close-to-announcing-video-channels/#comments Thu, 27 Oct 2011 07:00:40 +0000 Amir Efrati http://allthingsd.com/?p=137202 Google Inc.’s YouTube is expected to announce as early as next week that it has signed a slew of partnerships with media companies and well-known personalities to produce original content for the popular video website, said people familiar with the matter.

Among the expected partners are major media companies such as IAC/InterActiveCorp.’s Electus, News Corp.’s ShineReveille unit, RTL Group’s FremantleMedia Ltd., as well as skateboarding legend Tony Hawk and “CSI” creator Anthony Zuiker, other people familiar with the matter have said. (News Corp. owns The Wall Street Journal.)

Several other partners for YouTube’s new initiative, which is trying to upend the way entertainment is created, already create popular content on the video site, people familiar with the matter said. Those include Machinima Inc., which creates content for young men.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111027/youtube-close-to-announcing-video-channels/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111011/serious-business-collegehumor-tries-selling-web-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20111011/serious-business-collegehumor-tries-selling-web-video/#comments Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:02:29 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=130967

Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld are Web stars. The twentysomethings draw an audience of 500,000 people, twice a week, for their three-minute “Jake and Amir” shows on CollegeHumor.com.

But those fans watch Hurwitz and Blumenfeld’s buddy/frenemy comedy clips for free. What would happen if they had to pay?

We’ll find out this afternoon, when the duo rolls out “Jake and Amir: Fired,” a 30-minute special. CollegeHumor will sell streams of the show on its site and via Facebook for $2.99 a pop, and DVDs for $13 apiece.

It’s the first time IAC’s comedy site — which has carved out a nice niche for itself in the low-budget Web originals business — has tried selling anything beyond T-shirts to its audience.

And it’s very much a test. CollegeHumor co-founder Ricky Van Veen isn’t convinced that it will turn a profit, but he’s okay with that. “If this is a loss leader for us, but we learn a lot about paid content, how it works, then it’s worthwhile,” he says.

Van Veen puts the budget for the special at “low five figures.” That’s a sum which would barely register on a Hollywood expense account, but it’s 10 times more than an average “Jake and Amir” episode. The extra money paid for more crew members and editors, etc., as well as the cost of taking a camera crew out of IAC’s offices and onto bona fide locations.

CollegeHumor CEO Paul Greenberg figures the company will need to sell a combination of about 15,000 DVDs and digital streams to break even on the project. And even though that’s a fraction of the duo’s regular audience, Van Veen isn’t convinced they’ll get that.

And the video itself — filmed and edited this summer while Hurwitz and Blumenfeld continued to put out their normal episodes — is still a work in progress. Original plans called for CollegeHumor to sell streams of the show on Apple’s iTunes and DVDs via Amazon, but technical issues have held that up for now.

So how do you get viewers who have been conditioned to watching stuff for free to pull out a credit card or tap their Facebook Credits fund?

Van Veen isn’t sure, and that’s the point of the experiment. “Jake and Amir” has built up a loyal fan base over its four-year run, and Van Veen figures that’s the first part of the equation.

“I think you could only charge money on the Internet if you have people who are rabid — a fan base that’s very invested in the product,” he says. “You already have to have an established property.” If this works, CollegeHumor will try repeating it with other Web video shows, Van Veen says.

Meanwhile Hurwitz and Blumenfeld are intrigued by the idea of selling stuff directly to fans, because it allows them to try more ambitious material without having to worry about appealing to advertisers.

Even if it does work, they don’t see themselves sticking around on the Web forever: Both want to move up to TV and movies. Blumenfeld has already appeared in an (excellent) episode of Louis C.K.’s “Louie”; Hurwitz has moved from New York to Los Angeles to try to land some writing work. “Internet video is cool, but anyone can make an Internet video,” Blumenfeld says.

But not everyone can sell it. Here’s an interview I shot with the pair last month, followed by a trailer for their new show, which should be available later today:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111011/serious-business-collegehumor-tries-selling-web-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111002/collegehumor-aims-to-grow-up-with-new-site/ http://allthingsd.com/20111002/collegehumor-aims-to-grow-up-with-new-site/#comments Mon, 03 Oct 2011 06:50:23 +0000 Jessica E. Vascellaro http://allthingsd.com/?p=127511 CollegeHumor, a site known for comedy about cute girls and pranks, is trying to grow up.

Its parent company, IAC/InterActiveCorp., is launching a new comedy site, Jest.com, that aims to broaden CollegeHumor’s humor to appeal to 18- to 49-year-olds.

The Jest site will feature some original Web video produced by Jest, which will be added every other day or so. The bulk of it will be tens of thousands of funny videos — including episodes of TV shows like ABC’s “Modern Family” — aggregated from across the Web through partnerships with sites like Hulu LLC and Google Inc.’s YouTube.

Typical of Jest’s humor is an original video about a room at furniture store Ikea where bickering couples can go to break-up, a riff on how stressful furniture shopping can be for couples. The site went live Sunday.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111002/collegehumor-aims-to-grow-up-with-new-site/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110926/welcome-to-the-boardroom-chelsea-clinton-joins-diller/ http://allthingsd.com/20110926/welcome-to-the-boardroom-chelsea-clinton-joins-diller/#comments Tue, 27 Sep 2011 05:30:36 +0000 Lauren A. E. Schuker and Joann S. Lublin http://allthingsd.com/?p=125183 She’s 31. She’s still a graduate student. And she’s held many different jobs in different industries over the last five years.

But those factors didn’t prevent Chelsea Clinton from landing a plum assignment: joining the board of Barry Diller’s Internet media holding company.

In her new role, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be the youngest member of IAC’s board by seven years.

Fellow directors include Michael Eisner, former chief of Walt Disney Co., and Edgar Bronfman Jr., chairman of Warner Music Group.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110926/welcome-to-the-boardroom-chelsea-clinton-joins-diller/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110719/marcel-proust-inspires-a-social-network-personal-memory-bank-proust-com/ http://allthingsd.com/20110719/marcel-proust-inspires-a-social-network-personal-memory-bank-proust-com/#comments Tue, 19 Jul 2011 12:00:33 +0000 Liz Gannes http://allthingsd.com/?p=99536 Proust, a new social site owned by Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp, is today launching a personal journaling service for users to share their life stories with their friends and families.

The company name is a reference to the French writer Marcel Proust, who famously (to some people, at least!) answered probing questions about himself in what’s come to be known as the Proust Questionnaire.

“On the social Web today we share trivial stuff, but why not go deeper, especially with people you’re closer to,” explained Proust CEO Tom Cortese in a recent interview.

Proust divides life experiences into chapters, presenting users with more than a thousand questions to get them telling their personal stories. Users can choose, quite simply, to make their answers public or private to only their contacts. They can also view their life histories as a map or timeline.

Proust will help users import their photos from Facebook and upload their videos to Vimeo, but unlike similar services such as Memolane, the site is less about aggregating a users’ existing social Web posts and more about creating new entries.

Cortese said Proust’s plans to make money include helping users print copies of their memories as physical books. He also committed to releasing a data export tool this fall.

Proust was incorporated in February 2010 and has six employees. Cortese said IAC does not plan to promote or distribute the site by using its other properties, but rather to let it grow organically on its own.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110719/marcel-proust-inspires-a-social-network-personal-memory-bank-proust-com/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110405/new-iphone-app-lets-users-count-calories-without-burning-any/ http://allthingsd.com/20110405/new-iphone-app-lets-users-count-calories-without-burning-any/#comments Tue, 05 Apr 2011 19:13:02 +0000 Ina Fried http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/?p=5921 There are lots of ways to count calories, but MealSnap may be the easiest yet.

The new iPhone app allows you to take a picture of what you are about to stuff your face with, compares it with its databases and then sends back an estimate of just how many calories you are about to consume (or have consumed if you manage to down it before the result comes back). The app, from InterActiveCorp’s DailyBurn unit, costs $2.99.

Like the calorie signs at restaurants, what you learn may not be that pleasant, but some research seems to show we make better choices when armed with the information. Then again, other studies suggest that may not be the case.

DailyBurn CEO Andy Smith said he lives in New York, a place where some menus have to list calorie information.

“I know that affects my decisions,” he told Mobilized.

Smith admits that the app won’t be spot-on in estimating calories, but notes that’s not necessarily the point.

“It’s not super important to be accurate,” Smith says. “Just the act of tracking something can change behavior.”

Because it stores a record of the photos, the app can also be used as a visual food diary. The truly ambitious (or even the boldly gluttonous) can opt to share the pictures with their friends and family, using the in-app ability to upload to Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.

“Some people like that to keep them accountable,” Smith said.

I wasn’t that ambitious, but I did want to put MealSnap through its paces. I started easy, snapping a picture of a tangerine. I didn’t want to make things too easy, so I didn’t add the optional caption. Two minutes later it guessed it was an orange and told me it was somewhere between 43 and 65 calories. Next up I sent a bowl of peanuts in the shell, including the caption. Within a minute it came back and estimated that would add up to somewhere between 149 and 224 calories (not counting whatever I burned cracking those pesky hulls). I opted to take a pass on the peanuts.

I wanted something that I could compare with an actual calorie count. In the name of science, I decided to scoop myself some light ice cream (I know, I have a rough job). I measured out exactly one cup, which the product label said should be 240 calories. I then scooped it out, snapped the picture and added a caption. MealSnap estimated my midmorning indulgence in the range of 108-162 calories.

MealSnap is only for iPhone for now, though the company hopes to do an Android app eventually. DailyBurn is still in the final beta testing for the Android version of its main app, which tracks exercise and nutrition information. Smith said the 14-person company has more iOS expertise, but is working to quickly get up to speed on Android.

“We know we’ve got to do it,” Smith said. “It’s coming soon.”

Smith said that MealSnap reflects the direction the company hopes to go, with apps that are less scientific but more fun and easy to use.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110405/new-iphone-app-lets-users-count-calories-without-burning-any/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110328/building-loyalty-on-web/ http://allthingsd.com/20110328/building-loyalty-on-web/#comments Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:00:43 +0000 Jessica E. Vascellaro http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=38178 Companies rushing to develop original video series for the Web are scrambling to solve one of the industry’s biggest problems: building an audience.

The challenge, which has stumped creators since the dawn of Web video, is getting more urgent as many producers shift their attention from creating one-off viral hits to online video franchises. Media companies and advertisers say they have money to invest, but loyal audiences, while growing, remain elusive.

Sites including Hulu LLC, IAC/InterActiveCorp’s CollegeHumor, Blip.tv and Demand Media’s Cracked.com are trying to draw recurring viewership by enticing users to tune in at a certain day of the week, running TV-like promos for Web shows or cross-promoting series against similar content.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110328/building-loyalty-on-web/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110323/sarah-silverman-makes-a-dennys-web-ad-you-may-not-want-to-watch-while-you%e2%80%99re-eating/ http://allthingsd.com/20110323/sarah-silverman-makes-a-dennys-web-ad-you-may-not-want-to-watch-while-you%e2%80%99re-eating/#comments Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:33:30 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=31106 Here’s some more “branded entertainment”–Web video shorthand for “thing we made once a marketer gave us some money in exchange for featuring their brand”–from IAC and Ben Silverman’s Electus Studio. This one’s an interview series with comedians, sponsored by Denny’s, shot in a “live, working Denny’s restaurant.”

It’s good, too. The ads feature David Koechner, whom you’ve seen in a million things, like “Anchorman” and in a semi-recurring role in the “The Office”, and he’s funny and smart. Today’s installment has him chatting up Sarah Silverman, and she’s great as well.

I also like the fact that save for a post-roll at the end, the video has nothing to do with Denny’s, other than its location–there’s not even a Moons Over My Hammy reference, which seems very hard to resist.

Since the stuff preceding the mini-ad is funny and entertaining, this makes me feel vaguely warm and positive about Dennys.

Except for two words that Silverman uses right around the 3:08 mark here–those make me uncomfortable and not hungry at all.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Just to be clear: I like vulgar potty humor.* A lot! It’s just that if I ran “one of America’s largest full-service family restaurant chains, currently operating more than 1,600 franchised, licensed and company-owned restaurants,” I think I’d be a tad bit squeamish about associating my brand with that part of the body and/or that affliction.

Still! I’m writing about it now, and showing you the clip, so perhaps this is exactly what Denny’s and Electus had in mind. (Really?)

*And I’m pro-Silverman in general. I bet if I’d seen her TED presentation last year, I’d have thought it was great.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110323/sarah-silverman-makes-a-dennys-web-ad-you-may-not-want-to-watch-while-you%e2%80%99re-eating/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20110314/barry-diller-panders-to-sxsw-and-it-works/ http://allthingsd.com/20110314/barry-diller-panders-to-sxsw-and-it-works/#comments Mon, 14 Mar 2011 17:06:58 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=4270 One of these speakers is not like the others, one of these speakers just doesn’t belong…but the fourth-day hangover crowd at SXSW Interactive came out in force to see longtime media executive Barry Diller speak at the Austin Convention Center this morning.

Diller expressed a love for SXSW’s Web technology entrepreneurs, earning applause for his comments on net neutrality, chuckles for his stories of Segway tour hijinks, and belly laughs for a story about his wife, Diane von Furstenberg, playing Angry Birds while talking on the phone with him.

“What I like so much about this place is that so many people here are essentially following their curiosity,” Diller said.

As for another technology bubble, “we’re puffing it up pretty nicely,” he said. But, “the fact that money chases it isn’t really that interesting. What is interesting is how much sheer invention is going on.”

Diller said he’s not worried about a technology bubble, but the prices are too high for him personally. As he put it, “All the money that’s going to be lost is going to be lost by people who can lose money. So who cares?”

The IAC chairman restated a deeply held belief in net neutrality. “We need an unambiguous rule–law–that nobody will step between the publisher and the customer. Full stop,” Diller said. Charging a company like Netflix for bandwidth, he added, “would be like asking the toaster to pay for the electricity.”

Diller also made fun of News Corp’s The Daily–don’t release a product “unless you can actually use it”–said he thinks the age of Internet TV is just three years away, and urged content creators to think about longer-form Internet video and micropayments.

Image from a fake Twitter account for Barry Diller, who doesn’t seem to have his own.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110314/barry-diller-panders-to-sxsw-and-it-works/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20110208/with-okcupid-bought-zoosk-brags-about-momentum/ http://allthingsd.com/20110208/with-okcupid-bought-zoosk-brags-about-momentum/#comments Tue, 08 Feb 2011 14:00:15 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=3345 Dating site Zoosk says that based on its January revenue, it will have a run rate of $90 million this year. Of course, recent growth could be a side effect of New Year’s resolutions and winter holiday loneliness, but the company says revenue is up 250 percent from this time last year.

Zoosk makes its money from premium subscriptions, which users must purchase for all but the most basic interactions on its site. It declines to disclose total user numbers, but says it is making money from them in more than 60 countries. The company has 80 employees working out of its headquarters in San Francisco. It is “cash-flow neutral,” according to co-CEO Alex Mehr.

Mehr admitted that Zoosk traditionally gets a 10 percent lift in revenue each January, but said that expected user growth should ensure revenue will not trail off later in the year.

Free dating site OkCupid was acquired last week by market leader Match.com, which often buys smaller competitors. Match, which itself is owned by IAC, had $108.3 million in revenue for the most recent quarter.

Zoosk, which was founded in 2007, bills itself as a younger and more social alternative to the standard dating sites. Sixty percent of Zoosk’s users are under 30 years old. The service originally grew in the viral (i.e., spammy!) early days of the Facebook platform, but now has a Web site, mobile apps and even a desktop client.

Mehr said to expect the company to introduce additional features in 2011 to make it more of a “social network built for dating” than a plain old dating site.

Zoosk’s last funding was a Series D round of $30 million led by Bessemer Venture Partners in November 2009.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110208/with-okcupid-bought-zoosk-brags-about-momentum/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110202/iac-swings-to-profit-on-higher-revenue/ http://allthingsd.com/20110202/iac-swings-to-profit-on-higher-revenue/#comments Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:30:42 +0000 Voices http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=35821 IAC/InterActiveCorp. beat Wall Street expectations with a 27 percent jump in fourth-quarter revenue, thanks to growth in its advertising and online dating business, but its adjusted profit of 26 cents a share fell short of the consensus forecast of 34 cents per share.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110202/iac-swings-to-profit-on-higher-revenue/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110202/okcupid-and-match-com-to-marry/ http://allthingsd.com/20110202/okcupid-and-match-com-to-marry/#comments Wed, 02 Feb 2011 15:39:08 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://emoney.allthingsd.com/?p=2274 Match.com gets a little sweeter. The dating site, which operates as part of IAC, says it has acquired OkCupid for $50 million in cash, plus more payments based on future performance. OkCupid, which is mostly ad-supported, targets younger adults by creating low barriers of entry to participate. Once users get a taste of online dating for free, the hope is to introduce them to pay sites, like Match.com and Chemistry.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110202/okcupid-and-match-com-to-marry/feed/ 2