With the help of West Coast Customs, the auto body shop known from the MTV series “Pimp My Ride,” Nintendo was able to create real-life replicas of the classic Mario Kart and Luigi Bumble V Kart.

As in the game, Mario’s shiny red go-kart comes complete with a glider attachment for flying; Luigi’s kart is tricked out with a rear propeller for underwater navigation.

Here’s Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, posing in Luigi’s Kart:

And, here’s Mario’s Kart:

The karts will be on display at the LA Auto Show, Nov. 18-27 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, and there is a contest for a chance to bring one home, via GameStop’s PowerUp Rewards program.

To win, PowerUp members must make a purchase or trade in a game at GameStop in December.

Early next year, an episode of “Inside West Coast Customs” will show how the vehicles became a reality.

Michael Bloom joined the publisher, which owns Rolling Stone, Us Weekly, and Men’s Journal, in May. On Friday afternoon, he sent out a memo announcing his departure. Here’s the bulk of the note:

As some of you already know, I’m moving on from Wenner Media. While it’s been a relatively short time, I’ve really enjoyed working with so many talented and creative people across Wenner’s incredible brands.

Over the past six months, a new digital leadership team has been put in place, and a lot of great work has been done to set the foundation of what will be a terrific digital future. I’m proud of what you guys have accomplished and I know that you will go on to do great things in 2012. I’ll certainly be rooting for you from the sidelines.

Unlike many of his competitors, Wenner Media owner Jann Wenner has never rushed to embrace digital publishing. For a long time, he did very little with the Web beyond handing over his flagship RollingStone.com site to RealNetworks.

That deal made him money, but it also allowed upstarts like Pitchfork to grab lots of territory and mindshare over the years. Last year, Wenner got control of the site again and moved to put most of it behind a pay wall.

Around the same time, Wenner declared himself unimpressed with the commercial upside of the iPad for magazine publishers, a position that put him at odds with the conventional wisdom. Since then, many of his peers have become much more sympathetic to his take.

Bloom, who had previously put in time at Sharecare, MTV, and AOL Time Warner, didn’t mention a new job in his note; Wenner Media hasn’t announced a replacement. I’ve asked Bloom and a Wenner rep for comment.

At least if you’re me, and your pals never, ever post Republican primary candidates’ TV spots on Facebook.

So no surprise to learn that the weird/funny/puzzling Herman Cain “smoking” ad is the 2012 campaign’s most popular Web video to date. So says Visible Measures, which tracks this kind of stuff.

The ad has racked up 2.1 million views on YouTube and other sites. Tellingly, only 1.3 million views come from the original video — the rest are reposts, “replies”, spoofs, etc.

And if you haven’t seen it yet, of course, you really should.

More interesting to me is that this ad, from Cain rival Rick Perry, is the second-biggest hit on the Web. And it’s a photo finish. This one, which first appeared in September, has just under 2.1 million votes. If this were a real race, we’d have a recount.

So. Two ads, almost-equal view counts, very different zeitgeist rankings.

Lesson here? Simple: It’s easy, if you’re me, to define “viral” as “thing I’ve heard about.” And often, you/I will be correct.

But very often the chattering/typing classes — or anyone, for that matter — mistakenly assume that our view of the world looks like the one everyone else sees. And the great/terrifying/humbling thing about the Web is that every so often it reminds us that there are 7 billion people out there. Which means “popular” is often going to mean “never heard of it.”

Okay. Sermon’s over! Back to me and my pals on Facebook. Look at this old “Headbangers Ball” video my friend Todd just posted!

Longtime media and Internet exec Bob Pittman has been named CEO of radio broadcast and outdoor advertising giant Clear Channel, the company announced today.

Pittman — who has been chairman of Clear Channel’s media and entertainment platforms after making an investment in the company less than a year ago — will join the board of directors of CC Media Holdings, Clear Channel Communications and Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, as executive chairman.

Clear Channel’s holdings include a huge parcel of radio stations across the U.S., along with a number of digital properties and a big global outdoor advertising business.

Pittman — the former MTV wunderkind who started in radio at 15 years old as an announcer at a station in his native Mississippi — has not been in a top job like this one since he resigned from the then-AOL Time Warner as its COO in the midst of the botched merger mishegas almost a decade ago.

Since then, Pittman has been doing a range of things, including making canny investments in a variety of Internet start-ups such as Zynga and DailyCandy, and even in a high-end tequila company via the Pilot Group, a New York-based private investment firm.

He made his own investment in Clear Channel last year and has since upped his involvement, which resulted in the latest move to CEO.

“I swore I would never work like this again, but when something gets me this stimulated, I knew I wanted to get into it again,” said Pittman, in an interview with me yesterday. “I think this company has everything it needs to be a great media company in the new media landscape.”

That will include a range of new initiatives, including recent partnerships with Facebook and more.

“We want to move like an entrepreneur and have the assets of a big media company,” said Pittman. “I am an addict for this challenge.”

Here’s the official press release from Clear Channel:

BOB PITTMAN NAMED CEO OF CC MEDIA HOLDINGS

Appointment Underscores Clear Channel’s Evolution to a Fully Realized, Integrated Media, Digital and Entertainment Enterprise

Media Pioneer Will Oversee the Company’s Global Media Properties, including Broadcast, Digital and Mobile, Syndication, Media Representation and Outdoor

New York, NY — October 2, 2011 — CC Media Holdings, Inc. (OTCBB: CCMO), a leading global media, digital and entertainment company, announced today that Bob Pittman will become its Chief Executive Officer. Pittman joined Clear Channel in November 2010 as an investor and the company’s Chairman of Media and Entertainment Platforms. Pittman will join the Board of Directors of CC Media Holdings, Inc. and Clear Channel Communications, Inc.; in addition, he will join the Board of Directors of Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc., as its Executive Chairman. These appointments are effective immediately.

In his new role, Pittman will oversee the company’s businesses, which include:

Clear Channel Radio, which serves 150 cities through 850 owned radio stations and an additional 100 cities and 4,000 stations through its syndicated Premier Radio Networks products. Clear Channel Radio also includes:

* Clear Channel Digital, which develops and operates iHeartRadio, the free, industry-leading digitalradio product that combines access to all of Clear Channel’s live broadcast and digital-only radio stations as well as user-created Custom Stations. Clear Channel Digital also develops the companion digital products for each radio station brand, including strong social components;

* Media Services for the radio, media, digital, mobile and music industries, including Total Traffic Network, a groundbreaking programming and technology service delivering real-time traffic data to vehicles via in-car and portable navigation systems, broadcast media, wireless and Internet-based services; The Katz Media Group, the leading media representation firm in the US for radio and television stations; and RCS, which provides scheduling and broadcast software for radio, internet and television station in addition to research studies that aid the media and music businesses.

Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, which is one of the world’s largest outdoor advertising companies with close to one million displays in over 40 countries across five continents. Clear Channel Outdoor includes:

* Americas Outdoor Advertising, which owns or operates nearly 190,000 displays across the United States, Canada and Latin America including operations in 49 of the 50 largest markets in the United States. The Americas businessconsist of various types of displays that include billboards; street furniture; transit displays; the Clear Channel Airports division, which is the premier innovator of contemporary display concepts and currently operates more than 260 airport programs across the globe; mall displays; wallscapes; and spectaculars including Spectacolor, a market leader in spectacular sign displays, with displays located in New York’s Times Square. The Company has been a leader in the development and operation of digital displays and networks across many of its U.S. markets.

* International Outdoor Advertising operates across Asia, Australia and Europe with displays across nearly 30 countries. The International business consists of street furniture and transit displays, billboards, mall displays, wallscapes and spectaculars. Clear Channel International’s street furniture division operates over 3,500 municipal advertising contracts worldwide.

Pittman will also remain a member of Pilot Group, LLC, a New York-based private investment firm.

“On behalf of the Board of Directors, I want to express how delighted I am that Bob has accepted this position,” said Mark Mays, Chairman of Clear Channel Media Holdings. “He has been an invaluable contributor to Clear Channel Radio since last November, and he is the perfect person to take Clear Channel to the next level. I look forward to his leadership of our company.”

“Bob Pittman brings a long history as a brilliant innovator and brand builder — from his days as a very successful radio programmer, creator of MTV and CEO of MTV Networks to his work helping to drive the phenomenal growth of AOL and his successful investments in other digital, media and technology companies. He has already generated a renewed sense of confidence and direction not only at Clear Channel, but across the entire radio and media landscape,” said Scott Sperling, Co-President of THL Partners.

“I’m thrilled we were able recruit Bob into the CEO role at Clear Channel. He is the perfect fit to lead this incredibly powerful media platform. He embraces creativity, and has given employees the motivation and freedom to innovate, take risks and succeed,” said John Connaughton, Managing Director of Bain Capital. “He thinks big, is not afraid of change and is intensely focused on driving new businesses, expanding our creative talent and maximizing the full value of Clear Channel’s extraordinary assets, ideas and people.”

Pittman’s appointment comes on the heels of several industry-leading achievements by Clear Channel Radio this past year. In March, the company acquired digital music company Thumbplay for its state-of-the-art technologies as well as its technology and product teams. Last week, Clear Channel hosted the iHeartRadio Music Festival, the largest live concert event in radio history, which marked the official launch of the New iHeartRadio, which combines more than 850 of the nation’s most popular live broadcast and digital-only radio stations from 150 cities with user-created Custom Stations. iHeartRadio was one of the few highlighted new products at Facebook’s f8 conference on September 22nd, where it was recognized for its technology and cutting-edge social integration.

Additionally, Clear Channel has demonstrated its unique national promotional capabilities through significant relationships with record labels and social media leaders, and forging relationships with partners like Microsoft, Facebook, Zynga, Toyota and HP that reach further and deeper than advertising.

“Over the past year, I’ve had the unique opportunity to look at the Clear Channel people and assets up close and have found myself increasingly drawn to the company, to the point where the chance to get even more deeply involved has just become irresistible,” said Pittman. “I know first-hand that we have great people and the assets that allow them to do great things. We are so much more than just transmitters and broadcast towers — we leverage our local brands, personalities, strategic relationships and programming expertise to create unique experiences that forge real connections with consumers across our multiple platforms.”

Pittman continued, “I look forward to continuing to work closely with John Hogan and the Clear Channel Radio team to grow our company as we strengthen relationships with our consumers, advertisers, artists, labels and partners, nationally and locally — and I’m excited by the opportunity to work with Ron Cooper and William Eccleshare to help them make the most of our outdoor advertising potential by tapping into Clear Channel’s assets as a whole. I believe we have the technologies, the physical infrastructure, the content and, most importantly, the people to market to consumers better than any other media company in the world.”

At their height, music-related games generated an estimated $1.7 billion in revenues in 2008. Families all over America were rocking out in their living rooms with plastic guitars and drum sets to everyone from the Beatles to Aerosmith.

But less than three years later, the leaders in the space were canceling new products and slashing production.

In late 2010, slowing sales of Rock Band led Viacom to sell maker Harmonix and close the MTV Games publishing division, and a few months later, Activision Blizzard canceled Guitar Hero.

The book, called “Music Games Rock: Rhythm Gaming’s Greatest Hits of All Time,” is by Scott Steinberg and is available via download for a number of e-readers at www.MusicGamesRock.com. It is free on the Web, or costs $2.99 for the Kindle.

Steinberg is the CEO of TechSavvy Global, a technology and video game consulting firm, and previously wrote the book “Get Rich Playing Games.”

But I find that it’s easier than ever to be fully informed about What Was On The Teevee Last Night without ever turning on the set. Twitter, in particular, is good/bad about this — even if I have no interest in, say, last night’s MTV Video Music Awards, my feed makes sure I’ve got all the relevant info.

In case your Twitterfeed doesn’t look like mine, there were two big take-aways:

A) Beyonce looks pregnant and is encouraging everyone to believe that this is the case.

B) Adele, the only person in the world who is selling lots of recorded music these days, gave the night’s best performance.

Obligatory digital media business notes:

• The part where Twitter gives me the ability to learn about stuff that happened 12 hours ago is a little different from Twitter’s current pitch to TV programmers and advertisers. Dick Costolo and company like to argue that Twitter makes live TV more essential. The two ideas aren’t mutually exclusive — it’s possible that Twitter actually does boost live TV ratings at the same time it makes catch-up easier — but since there’s a lot less money in the catch-up business than in the live TV business (see: Hulu) you won’t hear much about that.
• Easy to forget, but true — MTV parent Viacom is still suing Google and YouTube. Which means that the clip I provided above should be hard to find, at the very least. But this one popped up as the second result under “Adele” on YouTube this morning.

Does life become a 90s rap video? Cham’ bustin’ 24/7?

I basically had no money in my twenties.

I was luckier than most, my parents helped with the rent and I had spending cash via the Web design firm I started in 1995, Mischief New Media. My clients were “major” record labels and I designed Web sites for their artists. I wasn’t that great and as soon as the Web started taking off they brought those things in-house. But I had a knack for product development and saw an opening for better uber-music destinations in a landscape that had few good ones. So on the side, I started building music sites I would use. RockOnTV, MusicNewsWire and MusicStation, just to name a few.

I got lucky and five years later sold my company to MTV Networks. All those sites were rolled into SonicNet.com, the biggest music site around at the time. Now all defunct!

All of a sudden, I had some money.

What did I do first?

While in my lawyer’s office I made a copy of the check. Then I found what I thought to be the mailing address of the principal that kicked me out of school before my senior year. I wrote “F*CK YOU” on the check and mailed it. I don’t know if she ever got it. But 11 years after high school graduation, I finally had some closure. Yes, I held a grudge, but now I was over it. It’s a long story of trust, betrayal, power gone mad, evils of authority and not for this post. :-) She represented all the people that didn’t believe in me. Deep breath and now back to the story …

The money. What did I do with the money?

Two things I remember vividly.

First, I called my mom up and said something like this:

Me: It’s done. I just sold the company to MTV.

Mom: Oh, my god! Oh, my god! I’m so proud of you!

Me: Bring every bill, everything you owe over to my place tonight. We’re gonna write some checks.

Mom: Are you serious? (SCREAMING)

Me: Yes, see you later.

So, Mom did just that. And for about an hour that night we wrote checks for credit card bills, rent, school, personal loans … you name it.

Buying things is certainly a lot of fun. Travel, cars, all that big pimpin’ stuff. But at the end of the day, if you can help or give back to those that did the same for you … well, that rocks. It’s a great feeling. More importantly, my mom was directly responsible for my product chops. When I was about 3 years old, she bought me a huge box of building blocks. Simple, made of wood, lots of shapes. There is no doubt in my mind that playing with those blocks shaped my creativity. They made me think about structure, balance, systems and more. She always made sure we had what we needed; she went without and worked hard to provide for us.

To this day, it’s the proudest moment of my life.

The second thing? Well, let me step back here …

When you’re an entrepreneur putting it all on the line, as least with me, I worked constantly. For five years. Eighteen-hour days. Getting out very little. Always thinking about work. Work, work, work. When you have one of these events, like selling, you can go a little crazy for a second. It’s not over, there is more to do to realize the dream. But it’s a moment where you get dizzy for a second. And I sort of reverted back to childhood for a few weeks. How so? I went on eBay and bought what I remember to be thousands of Matchbox cars. Why? Who the f*ck knows. I liked them when I was five years old. My mom used to buy me one a week. It was a good memory from simpler times. Now? I was a man-child with cash and clearly no idea what to do with it.

So, I’m sitting in my apartment and these boxes start coming in. I mean tons of them. Unopened collections of f*cking Matchbox cars. I opened one, took a deep breath and just started laughing. What the hell was I thinking? There was no way I was able to return these. My small apartment was filled with toy cars. What now?

I went out to get something to eat a few days later and I noticed the lobby of my building had these huge bins for a children’s toy drive. I turned around, got the wheely pushcart in the lobby and went back to my apartment. I loaded the boxes of cars up and within a few trips had given all of them away. Mostly unopened. In these digital times, needy kids probably thought … what moron is giving me a miniature car? I want Nintendo DS!

And so goes my few weeks of reverting to childhood nuttiness.

Yes, I ended up getting the car and the home. I’ve bought hundreds of pairs of sneakers that put Quincy Smith’s collection to shame. I’ve traveled to all sorts of great places. I love buying stuff for my nieces and nephew. I’ve pretended to be an angel investor. … And yes, of course, I’ve donated to causes (I’m not totally selfish), mostly having to do with education (see www.cfy.org). But these are the two things I remember most.

So what did you do? Tell your stories …

-JH

Jason Hirschhorn is an entrepreneur most comfortable at the intersection between entertainment and technology. He was formerly CEO of his first venture, Mischief New Media, Chief Digital Officer of MTV Networks, President of Sling Media and most recently Co-President of Myspace. Jason is also an investor in Howcast, Buzz Media, 5 to 1 and other startups. You can follow him on Twitter @JasonHirschhorn or via his widely read Media ReDEFined newsletter (@MediaReDEF or http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=mediaredef)

Now the much-loved reality show “Project Runway,” as part of a larger promotional package with Yahoo, will integrate with IntoNow and possibly promote it on air. (The ninth season of the fashion design competition premieres on Lifetime at 9 p.m. ET/PT tonight.)

Prior to being acquired by Yahoo, “We had no go-to-market,” said Adam Cahan, VP of Yahoo Media Products and the former CEO of IntoNow. What Cahan means is, he was relying on users to find and promote the IntoNow app themselves. So far IntoNow, which has been iOS only, has been downloaded one million times.

Now, “Project Runway” watchers will be encouraged to pull out IntoNow when they are watching the show, so it can verify that’s the case through audio fingerprinting and then unlock bonus content, polls and chat.

Plus, IntoNow is also rolling out an Android app, as well as a new feature that takes users’ viewing history and creates a personalized hour-by-hour calendar of recommended shows.

Meanwhile, Shazam, which makes the enormously popular music identification apps, has said its next frontier is turning television interactive, and has already scored deals to link up bonus content for networks like MTV and Syfy and advertisers like Old Navy.

That’s the circle of life, according to a recent study from MTV Networks. The only surprise is that the study wasn’t referring to our relationships with our spouses, but rather our apps.

MTV actually characterized the stages in an app’s life in a little less cuddly terms, highlighting the transition from discovery and adoption to trial and, ultimately, either abandonment or long-term usage.

The network group surveyed 1,300 people who use mobile apps daily to find out their usage patterns, with 83 percent of respondents saying they are addicted to their apps.

“One participant went so far as to say that ‘apps are like Xanax in a phone,’” MTV said in a summary of its survey.

The MTV study asked users to go without their apps for three days and then imagine what it would be like to go without their beloved programs for two whole weeks.

“I don’t think you’d find me alive after the second week,” said one young woman. Asked whether they they would rather give up their favorite app or another treasured thing for a year, more than half of respondents said they would forego coffee, a trusted news source or favorite TV show rather than their favorite apps.

Of course, there are lots of apps and only a few favorites, meaning there are a lot of programs not even worth the memory they are taking up on the phone.

Among the other findings:

The bus, which was used to promote his book “Delivering Happiness,” has nine bunk beds, pomegranate seeds in the fridge and the obligatory groupies hanging out in it.

From the lounge in the back of the bus, Hsieh talks about what it was like to sell his company to Amazon in a deal worth $1.2 billion, how he’s determined to stay independent and the correlation between being happy and running a successful business.

Now, the bus continues on as a symbol for the company’s culture, which encourages a blurring of the lines between life and work.

Here’s the video, including the ending where we attempt a MTV-esque goodbye, where Hsieh kicks me off the bus, although I screw it up by failing to leave.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110602/all-aboard-zappos-happiness-bus/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110512/dailymotion-vet-joy-marcus-joins-dfj-gotham/ http://allthingsd.com/20110512/dailymotion-vet-joy-marcus-joins-dfj-gotham/#comments Thu, 12 May 2011 13:22:34 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=32778 Joy Marcus, who used to run U.S. operations at France’s DailyMotion, has a new gig: She’s joining DFJ Gotham as a venture partner, where she’ll concentrate on the firm’s digital media portfolio. Marcus’ resumé also includes stints at Time Warner, Barnesandnoble.com and MTV.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110512/dailymotion-vet-joy-marcus-joins-dfj-gotham/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110503/maybe-its-not-cord-cutting-but-cord-nevers-tv-ownership-drops/ http://allthingsd.com/20110503/maybe-its-not-cord-cutting-but-cord-nevers-tv-ownership-drops/#comments Tue, 03 May 2011 13:10:14 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=32397 Americans watch more TV than ever. Except for the Americans who don’t have TVs at all any more: Nielsen says the percentage of American homes with TV sets has declined to 96.7 percent, from 98.9 percent last year.

The numbers will kick off another round of debate about cord-cutting, cord-shaving, and cord-nevers–young ‘uns who grew up watching Google’s YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, etc., and have never found a reason to get a TV.

This last group is getting particular scrutiny from the TV executives I talk to, who generally remain convinced that only a very vocal minority of people have ditched TV for the Internet. But many of those same executives fret that a new generation of video watchers may never embrace TV, period.

Here’s Nielsen’s description for the drop, which includes rationales that will please both the “cord-cutting’s a myth”/”no it’s not” camps:

1) Digital Transition: The summer of 2009 marked a significant milestone with a shift from analog to digital broadcasting. Following the transition, consumers were only able to view digital broadcasts via a set with a built-in digital tuner (i.e., a newer TV set) or an analog TV set connected to a digital-to-analog converter box, cable or satellite. TV penetration first dipped after this transition; the permanence of this trend was acknowledged in 2010 after the number of TV households did not rebound over time.
2) Economics: As with previous periods of belt-tightening, the cost of owning a TV is a factor in this UE decline; TV penetration first saw sustained decreases in second quarter 2009. Lower-income, rural homes were particularly affected.
3) Multiple Platforms: Nielsen data demonstrates that consumers are viewing more video content across all platforms—rather than replacing one medium with another. However, a small subset of younger, urban consumers are going without paid TV subscriptions. Long-term effects of this are unclear, as it’s undetermined if this is also an economic issue, with these individuals entering the TV marketplace once they have the means, or the beginning of a larger shift to viewing online and on mobile devices.

To sum up: This is either a temporary blip–like the last drop, back in 1992–or it’s not. Commence the debate, again!

Shameless self-promotion time: I’ll be discussing this very issue next week at the Streaming Media East conference when I moderate a cord-cutting panel with some excellent participants from MTV, Starz, Roku and NBA Digital. Please stop by if you’re there.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110503/maybe-its-not-cord-cutting-but-cord-nevers-tv-ownership-drops/feed/ 10 http://allthingsd.com/20110405/gogii-hires-ex-myspace-exec-to-make-group-texting-pay-off/ http://allthingsd.com/20110405/gogii-hires-ex-myspace-exec-to-make-group-texting-pay-off/#comments Tue, 05 Apr 2011 16:00:59 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://emoney.allthingsd.com/?p=4159 Gogii, a company that makes a popular group text messaging app called textPlus, has hired Chandra Hill to head up its monetization plans as it weighs paid vs. ad-supported features.

Text messaging applications, which offer the ability to send messages to a group of people via a single phone number, were in the spotlight at SXSW. Companies such as Gogii, KIK, Beluga, GroupMe and Fast Society were the talk of the town since they provided easy ways for large groups of people to socialize and get in touch quickly.

Following the event, GroupMe provided its first hint at what its business model would be when it opened up its mobile group chat to brands, which would be highlighted in a “Featured Groups” section.

Now, Gogii is beefing up its monetizing efforts.

Hill, who will have the title of VP of monetization and publishing, was most recently VP of mobile monetization at Myspace.

She will oversee all company revenue, which includes in-app purchases, advertising and a new publishing unit, said Gogii CEO Scott Lahman. “I can’t think of anyone better who can hit the ground running. She’s been doing this for years at Fox and at Myspace. This is almost the exact same role.”

Gogii’s textPlus application has 7.7 million monthly active users and recently set a record for sending 35 million messages in one day.

While Hill is just joining the Los Angeles-based startup, the company has been monetizing with advertising from the beginning.  ”We hit seven-figure revenue-quarters last year, and that’s continued to grow. We are well past the testing stage. Advertising campaigns were up 300 percent in the first quarter compared to the same period last year.”

Mostly, the app relies on splash ads–which are like a homepage takeover–which the user sees immediately after opening the application. Lahman said users on average open the application 10 to 15 times a day, and that the ads have a click-through rate in the high single digits. There are also banner ads from within the applications, which are seen by its nearly eight million monthly active users.

Lahman said they made the decision to monetize with advertising because it allowed them to grow the business much faster than if they charged for it. A paid version of the application, which has no advertising, allows the user to pick the area code for the phone number they use. He said six to 10 percent of its users choose to upgrade. The app costs $4.99 and is available on iPhone and Android.

“The advertisers love it. We are the text client for a lot of our customers–that’s why they use it so much to send so many messages.”

Gogii uses a mix of its own direct sales force in addition to farming out some inventory to mobile ad networks, like Google’s AdMob, Jumptap and Greystripe. Returning advertisers include Disney, Fox, Target, Ford, Paramount, CBS, Unilever, JCPenney, MTV, Coca-Cola and Zynga.

The new publishing business, which Hill will oversee, will experiment with a sort of white-label service, which will allow a brand to completely take over the application for a specific brand or event.

Lahman said in March, 25 percent of the company’s revenues were coming from paid features inside the application. It’s his goal to hit 50 percent by the end of the year. “That will come against a growing advertising business–that’s not cannibalizing it,” he said.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110405/gogii-hires-ex-myspace-exec-to-make-group-texting-pay-off/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110401/mtv-loves-facebook-and-facebook-likes-mtv-a-lot-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20110401/mtv-loves-facebook-and-facebook-likes-mtv-a-lot-video/#comments Fri, 01 Apr 2011 17:54:10 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=5091 Twenty years after “the MTV Generation,” the TV network is now wooing the Facebook generation.

MTV this week aired a behind-the-scenes episode of its show “Diary” about employees at Facebook that was basically a half-hour recruiting video in the style of reality television. If you want to check it out, the full show is now online:

Meanwhile, the TV network told us it now has more than 58 million “likes” on Facebook across 82 show pages, including 18 million for MTV proper and nearly 10 million for “Jersey Shore.”

Social media outreach has been a major effort for MTV in the last year; in January 2010 the company had only 1.1 million fans on its main Facebook page.

But in the last year MTV has brought on a social media team of “talented digital natives” to engage in various social conversations, said Dermot McCormack, executive vice president of digital media for MTV Music and Logo, in a recent phone chat. The social media team is active on Twitter and Foursquare as well as Facebook.

McCormack said the next step will be bringing advertisers into this strategy, so it can become a business rather than an experiment and marketing play.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110401/mtv-loves-facebook-and-facebook-likes-mtv-a-lot-video/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110323/mtv-digital-marketer-heather-hopkins-goes-to-gilt/ http://allthingsd.com/20110323/mtv-digital-marketer-heather-hopkins-goes-to-gilt/#comments Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:54:51 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=31096 Heather Hopkins Freeland, who ran marketing and sales for MTV Networks Digital, has jumped from the Viacom unit to head marketing at Gilt City, the local offers company spun out of Gilt Groupe. Freeland joined Viacom in 2008 to build out MTV’s “Tribes” ad networks business.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110323/mtv-digital-marketer-heather-hopkins-goes-to-gilt/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110224/travel-search-gets-granular-with-room-77/ http://allthingsd.com/20110224/travel-search-gets-granular-with-room-77/#comments Thu, 24 Feb 2011 17:07:38 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=3763 If you’re really serious about travel, you don’t just want the best hotel, you also want the best hotel room. A newly-launched start-up called Room 77 is focusing on exactly that detail. And this is not just some user-generated review play; among other factors, the company is ranking hotel rooms by parsing Google Earth data with latitude, longitude and altitude parameters to simulate actual room views.

Users can query Room 77 in advance to request a room, and they can also use the company’s iPhone app to make quick decisions about which room to take when offered at the front desk. The company has results for 2,500 three-star and above hotels in North America and the UK, including room category, square footage, bed type and elevator proximity.

The company gets its room map data through direct relationships with hotels (it’s working on a larger deal with Starwood), sending staffers to examine hotels themselves, and from users taking pictures of the floorplan maps on the back of their room doors.

You see a lot of people trying to innovate around travel search and discovery these days by improving user experience, social features and the like. To Room 77′s credit, it’s breaking off a novel aspect of travel, though I wonder how many people care enough to download an app to get the best room.

The Sunnyvale, Calif company is run and funded by all sorts of online travel nuts. Founder and chairman Brad Gerstner of Altimeter Capital sold two travel start-ups and is on the board of Orbitz. VP Engineering Calvin Yang worked on image search at Google and then founded a travel start-up called OpTrip that’s now part of Room 77. GM and VP Product Kevin Fliess was co-founder and CEO of TravelMuse.

Room 77 was founded in 2009 and raised $3 million last year. Here’s the list of backers from the press release: “Rich Barton (founder of Expedia and Zillow), Erik Blachford (former president and CEO of IAC Travel), Bob Pittman (founder of MTV), and Hugh Crean (former president and CEO of Farecast), among others. Other investors include Par Capital Management, an early investor in ITA, Farecast, and Orbitz; Sutter Hill Ventures, which also invested in Farecast; and Felicis Ventures.”

Update: Room 77 was the judges’ pick of the 10 companies presenting at the Launch conference in San Francisco on Thursday morning. (And AllThingsD‘s Kara Swisher was one of the judges.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110224/travel-search-gets-granular-with-room-77/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110217/microsofts-kinect-sonys-move-and-other-accessories-are-videogame-bright-spot/ http://allthingsd.com/20110217/microsofts-kinect-sonys-move-and-other-accessories-are-videogame-bright-spot/#comments Thu, 17 Feb 2011 23:45:14 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://emoney.allthingsd.com/?p=2997 U.S. sales of videogame software and hardware fell in January, compared to the same period a year earlier, according to data released late Thursday by the NPD Group.

In fact, the only sector that grew in January was accessories, which increased six percent to $235.1 million

Accessories have been strong in previous months as well, buoyed by new motion-controlled remotes, like Microsoft’s Kinect and Sony’s Move.

The accessories have breathed new life into the Xbox and PlayStation at a critical time when the consoles have already been on the market for a couple of years.

However, accessories weren’t enough to keep both hardware and software sectors afloat.

In January, U.S. sales of videogame software fell five percent to $576 million compared to the same period the previous year. Hardware sales fell eight percent to $324 million.

In a statement issued by Microsoft today, it released more NPD data, including that it sold 381,000 Xbox units in January, up 15 percent year-over-year. It says it is the only console that showed growth in the time frame.

Microsoft also said it continues to experience some Xbox shortages at retail because of sustained consumer demand for Kinect, but anticipates the problem to improve through February, and is working retail and manufacturing partners to expedite production and shipments.

The top-selling games for the period were Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty: Black Ops, Ubisoft’s Just Dance 2, Electronic Arts’ Dead Space 2, Sony’s Little Big Planet 2, and Majesco’s Zumba Fitness. Making it into the top 10 was MTV’s Dance Central, which teaches people how to dance using the Xbox Kinect.

Photo Credit: Harmonix

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110217/microsofts-kinect-sonys-move-and-other-accessories-are-videogame-bright-spot/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110124/ngmocos-ambitions-accelerate-from-game-maker-to-future-entertainment-company/ http://allthingsd.com/20110124/ngmocos-ambitions-accelerate-from-game-maker-to-future-entertainment-company/#comments Mon, 24 Jan 2011 15:30:09 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://emoney.allthingsd.com/?p=1875 Ngmoco CEO and Electronic Arts veteran Neil Young does not downplay the opportunity in front of him.

He’s building a network that he thinks can be as meaningful to today’s generation as MTV was to the rock ‘n’ roll era.

The opportunity doesn’t come around very often, he admits, but he believes we are at a tipping point, where games, mobile devices and high-speed networks will lead to a new entertainment channel, saying such moments “are infrequent, but when they do come along, a lot of value will be generated.”

Young’s plans were only accelerated three months ago after the game developer sold for $400 million to a company that is far from a household name in the U.S.–Japanese-based DeNA (pronounced D-N-A).

We caught up with Young at the company’s headquarters in San Francisco to understand how Ngmoco’s mission has changed, and to learn about what the two have in store for the U.S. market.

DeNA is a publicly traded mobile social network that has a market cap of $4.5 billion and annual revenues of $1.25 billion.

The company has been on an acquisition spree over the past few months, buying U.S. mobile game-makers, like Icebreaker and Gameview Studios, along with making a handful of other U.S. investments.

In Japan, DeNA is known for its mobile-only social network called Mobage-town (pronounced Mo-bah-gay), which runs on lower-end feature phones and makes all of its money selling virtual goods within its network of games.

Now DeNA is looking to expand into the U.S., and to transition from feature phones to smartphones in Japan.

Ngmoco will become the backbone for both.

Ngmoco was spawned from the iPhone application boom, having received investments from Kleiner Perkins’ iFund and, more recently, Google Ventures. It created iPhone games like We Rule, and We Doodle and Rolando.

Then, last summer, it played down the development of games in favor of creating a gaming platform, called the Plus Network. The network allowed players to log in to the same account across multiple games and to participate in leaderboards and awards. In other words, it was a social network of sorts.

Not very coincidentally, Young’s idea for the Plus Network was modeled after DeNA’s Mobage-town in Japan. He even presented it to investors that way in slides when raising money. The Plus Network will now become the basis for Mobage in the U.S. and Japan.

The network will be open to third-party game developers who are looking for a single log-in experience, a community of users playing within a social network and a monetization platform. It will run on Android because the platform is more open than Apple’s iPhone.

Already, Ngmoco has some traction.

It has signed a deal with Samsung to become its default Game Hub on all the Android phones and tablets, and it has 40 developers participating in a beta. Within the next two months, Ngmoco expects to launch “We Rule” on Android and to launch the fully integrated Mobage service in the second quarter.

One way to think about Mobage is a Facebook-like platform on top of mobile phones that companies like FarmVille’s Zynga could leverage. Young prefers to compare it to MySpace, except that MySpace failed to catapult itself from its leadership position on music to become a entertainment destination.

One stark difference between social networks on PCs and Mobage is that users won’t necessarily be playing with friends, but rather a network of game players you may or may not know. Young argues that’s a benefit: “It’s difficult to escape if everyone is watching you.”

If it sounds ambitious, it is.

But it’s something Young is comfortable with.

When Ngmoco originally launched, its first logo read ng:moco :) with a few Japanese characters written underneath. Roughly translated, the Japanese characters said “future entertainment company.”

Young said it was in Japanese for two reasons: It looked cool, and because it was too cocky to come out in say it.

Today, he doesn’t hesitate: “Now we have the chance to do it.”

Young has a set of three priorities: Launching and executing Mobage as a brand on Android; building a small number of games to show off the platform’s potential; and finally to move the Mobage platform from mobile to tablets, and then to the TV.

In a video interview, Young describes in more depth how Ngmoco could become the next MTV, and proves that he really did use the word “cocky”:

Photo Credit: mobilopen.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110124/ngmocos-ambitions-accelerate-from-game-maker-to-future-entertainment-company/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110104/holy-start-up-pileup-social-networking-gets-professional/ http://allthingsd.com/20110104/holy-start-up-pileup-social-networking-gets-professional/#comments Tue, 04 Jan 2011 14:30:09 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=1931 The same variety of apple has apparently been falling from trees all over Silicon Valley, hitting Web entrepreneurs on the head and inspiring them to create better ways to connect personal and professional social networks.

Beyond the directory-style LinkedIn, that could mean facilitating professional profiles on social sites, pushing job postings through networks, introducing contacts, soliciting referrals and sharing resources.

Part of the reason this idea has been so resonant with Web entrepreneurs–and investors too–is the trouble they’re having with hiring qualified people to work at their own companies.

(Unlike in other parts of the world right now, unemployment rates are not as much of a problem among techies.)

Assetmap, a pre-launch San Francisco-based start-up, for example, wants to help companies and nonprofits understand what assets they may have at their disposal through their networks.

These connections already exist, but they’re often unexploited, according to Assetmap co-founder Nathaniel Whittemore, who let me in on a bit of what he’s doing.

Whittemore told NetworkEffect the failings of sites like LinkedIn include “forcing a distinction between personal and professional that is becoming less and less obvious and failing to recognize that the one-to-one friend-based social graph isn’t the only graph that has value for business.”

Whittemore and co-founder Danny Moldovan hail from the world of social entrepreneurship. Former Northwestern classmates, they had both been at the fast-growing activism platform Change.org.

They have teamed with Jayson Vantuyl, co-founder of Engine Yard, the Ruby on Rails hosting service. At the moment, they are funded by friends and family while looking for outside capital, and plan to launch this spring.

There are many early companies in this space with fancier pedigrees.

Top Prospect, a social recruiting site that rewards users with $10,000 or more for helping friends find jobs, was funded by Andreessen Horowitz, Spark Capital, Ron Conway, David Goldberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Rick Thompson, Chamath Palihapitiya and other angels.

Also based in San Francisco, Top Prospect was founded by Rotem Perelmuter, who formerly sold an online radio service to MTV Networks during the dot-com boom (and more recently ran a hedge fund). The site is currently in open beta.

Delicious founder Joshua Schachter’s Tasty Labs, which has gotten money from Union Square Ventures, hasn’t said much about what it is doing, but is also working on something similar to the idea of an asset map.

Elsewhere, BranchOut, which bills itself as offering “your professional profile on Facebook,” raised $6 million from Accel Partners, Floodgate, Norwest Venture Partners and many angels.

And Hashable, a network for introductions, raised $4 million, also from Union Square Ventures.

And Namesake, from Ad.ly and Newroo co-founders Brian Norgard and Daniel Gould, offers a pretty site for “opportunity routing,” with features such as a real-time stream and chat.

It goes on–other young start-ups in the space include Sumazi, Pursuit, Identified and Gild. (You knew this would happen: Gild turns the social recruiting concept into an online game.)

It wouldn’t really make sense to combine social and professional networks by starting from scratch, so these sites are built on top of existing networks like LinkedIn and particularly Facebook. If you want to try them out, be prepared to cough up those Facebook Connect credentials a whole bunch of times.

(Cute explainer graphics above from Assetmap, Top Prospect and Identified, respectively.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110104/holy-start-up-pileup-social-networking-gets-professional/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20101215/sprint-aims-to-tailor-android-for-the-masses/ http://allthingsd.com/20101215/sprint-aims-to-tailor-android-for-the-masses/#comments Wed, 15 Dec 2010 15:00:35 +0000 Ina Fried http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/?p=920 Cellphone carriers have had a relatively easy time marketing Android phones to the early adopters who were looking for a powerful smartphone they could customize to their liking.

That, after all, is what it was built for.

But a looming challenge is how to tailor both the phones and their marketing to make them more appealing to all those mainstream users who are buying their first smartphone.

For Sprint, one step in this process has been the creation of Sprint ID–a system that lets phone buyers customize their device with one or more themed “packs,” which install a series of themes, widgets and applications with a single click.

Sprint launched the effort back at the CTIA show in October, but is now getting up to speed by both adding more devices compatible with Sprint ID and by lining up some brand-name content. This week, Sprint announced a new MTV-themed pack that combines news from MTV, music from Pandora and an app that helps highlight new artists based on social networking trends.

There’s clearly some room here for device makers and carriers. Even Google’s Andy Rubin, the father of Android, concedes that thus far Android has been best suited for techies.

“I would probably characterize Android as it is today as an early adopters’ platform,” Rubin said at last week’s D: Dive Into Mobile. “It’s for the tech enthusiast and people who are married to the tech enthusiast.”

That is quickly changing, though, with Android making up a greater and greater percentage of phone sales at Sprint and elsewhere.

“You are moving to the mass majority,” said David Owens, Sprint’s vice president of consumer marketing. “That’s not a group of people that are going to go in and customize their device.”

Sprint ID allows them to pick an interest and get all kinds of related content. From there, users can uninstall components or add other applications, but Owens said it gives users a starting point and Sprint a way to stand out from the competition.

Initially, Sprint ID packs were offered as options on two Android models, and more recently Sprint added the lower-end Optimus S to the mix. Owens said those who have one of the three phones have downloaded, on average, two of the themed packs. Sprint plans to eventually offer Sprint ID on all its Android devices.

Sprint ID opens the door to some alternative revenue possibilities for advertising or sales of premium content, but currently all the packs are free, and Sprint is not banking on much in the way of additional bucks for now.

So far, it has about 15 of the different packs, each geared to specific topics and identities, ranging from the MTV pack, to one for golf enthusiasts to several targeted specifically to Latinos. (Latino MTV watchers who love to play 18 holes needn’t worry–users can install up to six different packs and switch among them.)

What has been lacking until now is much in the way of brand power, though Owens said Sprint hopes to change this with MTV and other packs in the pipeline. He wouldn’t give any hints, but said there should be more announcements by CES.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101215/sprint-aims-to-tailor-android-for-the-masses/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101007/college-humor-gets-a-new-grownup-time-inc-digital-dude-paul-greenberg/ http://allthingsd.com/20101007/college-humor-gets-a-new-grownup-time-inc-digital-dude-paul-greenberg/#comments Thu, 07 Oct 2010 12:44:40 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=24234 Here’s the new adult supervisor at College Humor, Barry Diller’s much-smarter-than-you’d-think humor site: Paul Greenberg, who most recently had been running digital operations at Time Inc.’s Lifestyle group.

But only very recently: Greenberg started at Time Warner’s (TWX) publishing unit at the end of February, and resigned yesterday to become CEO at College Humor Media. Prior to Time Inc., he put in time at TV Guide.com, MediaNet and MTV.

Greenberg’s new job is a newly created position, which puts him in charge of the main College Humor site as well as satellites like SportsPickle and Dorkly (that was fun to type!).

College Humor co-founder Josh Abramson will stay in his current position as president; co-founder Ricky Van Veen remains occupied with TV projects at IAC’s Notional. But he had time to send me a note about the new hire:

I couldn’t be more thrilled. We knew instantly upon meeting him that Paul was the right person for the job. Plus, to me the choice was pretty obvious — who wouldn’t want to trade up from a goofy little startup like Time Inc to a more established and venerable institution like CollegeHumor?

I’ve asked Time Inc. if they have a replacement lined up for Greenberg; I’ll update if I hear back.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101007/college-humor-gets-a-new-grownup-time-inc-digital-dude-paul-greenberg/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20100917/samsung-is-latest-to-push-mobile-media-and-apps-for-tvs/ http://allthingsd.com/20100917/samsung-is-latest-to-push-mobile-media-and-apps-for-tvs/#comments Fri, 17 Sep 2010 07:00:47 +0000 Lauren Goode http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=29860 As Samsung Electronics promotes its version of Apple’s iPad Thursday, the company is also revealing its answer to the iTunes store — or at least the video portion of it.

As part of the U.S. unveiling of the Galaxy Tab, a mobile device with a 7-inch screen, Samsung is showing off a new media and entertainment platform for mobile.

The move is yet another step by a technology company to keep up in the mobile-device arms race, which involves not only phones and tablets but also the media and applications that run on them.

The entertainment portal, named Media Hub, will allow users to rent or purchase content using the Galaxy Tab or Galaxy S smartphones. It will initially include TV series like “The Office” and “The Event,” as well as some Hollywood movies. A spokesman for the company said Samsung has partnerships with NBC, Universal Home Entertainment, MTV and Paramount, but wouldn’t specify the exact nature of the partnerships or offer details on pricing. The company later said it also had an agreement with Warner Bros. as well.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100917/samsung-is-latest-to-push-mobile-media-and-apps-for-tvs/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100831/youre-the-mayor-of-what/ http://allthingsd.com/20100831/youre-the-mayor-of-what/#comments Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:19:38 +0000 Beth Callaghan http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=29053 As part of an effort to destigmatize regular health checkups for sexually transmitted diseases, MTV and Foursquare will team up in September as part of MTV’s “GYT: Get Yourself Tested” campaign. In order to get the special black and green badge, a Foursquare user has to shout “GYT” to his or her friends after checking in at a nearby clinic. Stephen Friedman, MTV’s general manager, hopes the program will offer positive reinforcement for getting tested. “It only takes a few to get the ball rolling,” he said.

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