SOPA blackouts to go on, even if bill is dead (for now)
Parts of the internet will go black tomorrow. From Wikipedia and Reddit to the Cheezburger network and Major League Gaming, numerous highly-trafficked web properties say they'll shut down to protest the SOPA legislation that would make the internet far less free in the name of fighting piracy.
Even Google is going to be making a statement using its homepage.
The blackouts are going on despite the fact that SOPA is effectively dead -- for the time being.
Yahoo partners on animated sci-fi series
Is Yahoo a media company, or a technology company? It's a question the company has long struggled with.
If you look at the recent appointment of former PayPal president Scott Thompson as CEO, you might suspect that Yahoo is aiming to be a technology company once again.
After all, Thompson was once PayPal's CTO, a VP of technology solutions at a Visa subsidiary and a CIO at Barclays.
But the fact that Thompson is a technologist doesn't mean that Yahoo is ditching its Hollywood connection, cemented during Terry Semel's reign, either. In fact, it's upping the ante with a deal that will see it distributing exclusively a new animated sci-fi series.
SOPA: the sad but honest truth
The fight against SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, may be one of the most important fights ever waged on the internet. It threatens to change the course of the web's development, and not for the better.
Given the impact this dark and misguided legislation would have on the internet economy, it's no surprise that many are coming together to do what they can to ensure it doesn't become law.
The media is starting to pay attention, and SOPA supporters like GoDaddy are seeing that such support comes at a cost. These things provide some hope that SOPA will be defeated.
Unfortunately, however, the discussion about SOPA is incomplete.
Apple launches 'season pass' option for TV shows
iTunes is perhaps the best friend of countless music fans. It's easy to forget about the days in which you had to purchase an entire CD just to get one song, now thanks to Apple's service, millions of consumers today buy their music à la carte.
That's not to say that Apple and its record label partners don't want consumers to purchase albums.
To that end, Apple has for some time offered a 'Complete My Album' option that allows iTunes users that have purchased an individual track from an album to purchase the entirealbum at a discounted price.
Nielsen looks at social media and television
Television and social media are a match made in Hollywood. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are virtual watercoolers, and when something happens on television, you'll increasingly find that the conversation is taking place online.
This, for obvious reasons, creates numerous opportunities for the creators and distributors of television programming, and many television networks, producers and personalities are actively tapping into social media.
Will Amazon move aggressively into content?
Amazon may be the internet's dominant ecommerce company, but its ambitions extend well beyond retail.
It has fast become a key player in a market that is expected to become very large -- cloud infrastructure -- and now it appears to be making some moves into content which could be harbingers of things to come.
Download 'Hurt Locker' on BitTorrent? That might really hurt
The Hurt Locker won six Oscars earlier this year, and if its producers have their way, it will also be a big winner in court.
U.S. Copyright Group, a company operated by a group of intellectual property attorneys, has been retained by Voltage Pictures, which financed The Hurt Locker, to file a lawsuit targeting potentially tens of thousands of individuals who downloaded the film via BitTorrent. Ouch.
Conan O'Brien turns to Twitter post-Tonight Show
Want to break into Hollywood? Getting recognized via social media isn't the worst way to go about it. I recently wrote about Sh*t My Dad Says, which is going from Twitter to the small screen, with William Shatner no less.
But social media may also be a great way to break away from Hollywood. Case in point: former Tonight Show host Conan O'Brien
Five minutes on YouTube, a $30m Hollywood contract
Many big media companies are still trying to figure out how to cash in on the internet, but for some talented and lucky individuals, the internet has proven to be the perfect place to cash in on big media.
Recently, I wrote about the success realized by the creator of Sh*t My Dad Says. Thanks to a 700,000 strong following on Twitter, 28 year-old Justin Halpern was able to land a book deal and television comedy project before he hit 100 tweets.
Q&A: JD Lasica, Founder of Socialmedia.biz
JD Lasica is the founder of Socialmedia.biz, a social marketing consultancy, and Socialbrite.org, a learning hub for nonprofits. JD was an editor at a California newspaper before he became involved with digital media in the late 90s. He now speaks regularly about social media and user-generated media.
JD recently participated in the Traveling Geeks roundtables hosted by Econsultancy and I spoke with him about social media, the impact it's having and the fate of mainstream media.
