• Rovio CEO Stepping Down; Time For 'Angry Birds' to Rebuild The Nest
     Mikael Hed, his "Angry Birds" success established, will step down as Rovio Entertainment’s chief executive next year. Pekka Rentala replaces him.
  • Historic 'Fred' Channel Is Being Revived On YouTube
    Lucas Cruikshank, the actor behind YouTube’s first breakout personality, Fred Figglehorn, is teaming with Collective Digital Studio to revive the "Fred" channel, helium voice and all. It was the first YouTube channel to get one million subcribers after the Fred character was invented, way back in 2006.
  • Conde Nast's Video Strategy Causing Internal Power Struggle
    The heads of Condé Nast’s most revered titles are not happy with Condé Nast Entertainment and its growing influence. “As C.N.E. has ramped up its output in recent months, creating more video for more of the publisher's titles, a palpable sense of frustration has been emanating from Condé Nast's famously powerful mastheads,” Capital New York reports. “It all boils down to content control, with frustrated editors facing off against a business operation that's been assigned with scaling up a lucrative new revenue stream.” 
  • Netflix Customer Complaints Tied To Slow Comcast Connections
    “For many [Comcast] subscribers, the bitrate was so poor that Netflix’s streaming video service became unusable,” writes a Netflix exec as part of its filing to the FCC objecting to the proposed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger. Some customers  noticed and complaints spiked.
  • "Party Down" Gets Second Showing on Hulu
    Hulu Plus will stream all episodes of the Starz comedy, "Party Down" starting Friday. The first five will also appear on Hulu's free site. 
  • Monkeys Have No Rights To Their Own Selfies, Copyright Office Rules
    In 2011, British photographer David Slater spent three days with crested black macaques in the forests of Indonesia. Wanting to get a close-up of a monkey’s face, Slater set up his camera on a tripod with a cable release, walked several feet away and hoped for the best. He got a great monkey selfie, but copyright office says he didn't take the picture. The monkey did. And it can't register. So it's in public domain.  
  • "Orange Is The New" . . .Video To Rip Off
    As of last week, Netflix's “Orange Is the New Black,” was the second-most-pirated TV show in the world on a daily basis after HBO’s "Game of Thrones." according to CEG TEK, a data service.
  • Netflix Petitions FCC To Deny Comcast-TWC Merger
     Netflix filed a petition to the FCC demanding that it deny the proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner. The 256-page document claims that it would result in "serious public interest harm," and no discernible public benefit. Netflix cited several examples of harm already inflicted on it by Comcast or Time Warner Cable. For one, Comcast has used network congestion as an excuse to "shift Netflix traffic to paid interconnections," It also argued that data caps have been used as a tactic to deter consumers from third-party streaming companies like Netflix or Hulu.  Netflix wrote that a merged cable giant would …
  • Hispanics Are A Great Audience For Online Video, MediaVest's Skiko Says
    The U.S. Hispanic audience is far more likely to watch, download, share and discuss video than other audience groups by a wide margin, writes Marla Skiko, executive VP/director of digital innovation, Starcom MediaVest Group’s Multicultural Division.
  • Canadian Cable Companies Plan Netflix-Like Service
    Two of Canada’s largest cable television distributors are expected to announce the launch of a joint video streaming service on Tuesday, in a bid to bolster their positions against growing competition from online services such as Netflix Inc.
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