(* Source: Mark Hefflinger *)

 



Take-Two Interactive announced on Wednesday that its "Grand Theft Auto IV" broke all-time day one and week one sales records, posting 3.6 million global unit sales on April 29, with a retail value of $310 million, and 6 million in sales for its first week, with an estimated retail value of more than $500 million. "Grand Theft Auto IV's first week performance represents the largest launch in the history of interactive entertainment, and we believe these retail sales levels surpass any movie or music launch to date," said Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick.

The previous sales record holder, Microsoft's "Halo 3," brought in $170 million on the first day it went on sale last fall.

Take-Two expects that Grand Theft Auto IV will sell 12 million copies this year.

Posted by brian tiong at 05:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *) 

News Corp. will have a full plate of Internet issues to discuss when it releases its quarterly earnings statement today. Foremost will be its plans regarding Yahoo!, and how whatever deal it does or does not do with Yahoo! will impact MySpace and Fox Interactive Media (FIM).

The drumbeat of skepticism over social network advertising has gotten louder in recent months. Much of the focus has been on MySpace, the US leader with a 41.5% share of US visits to social networking and community sites in March, according to Hitwise.

FIM reorganized its ad sales group in early April, leading to the departure of sales chief Michael Barrett. At the same time, news leaked that FIM might come up $100 million short of achieving the $1-billion fiscal 2008 revenue target set by News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch last June. (News Corp.'s fiscal year ends June 30.)

Financial analysts and the media have assumed that blame for the shortfall lies with MySpace, FIM's flagship, but FIM manages 12 other Internet properties, including IGN, FoxSports.com, RottenTomatoes.com and AmericanIdol.com. AmericanIdol.com will no doubt show strong revenues since the hot TV show is currently on-air. The smaller properties may not have fared as well and could very well take some of the blame.

eMarketer estimated last December that US marketers would spend $850 million to advertise on MySpace in calendar year 2008. Facebook is projected to reach $305 million in US revenue this year.

Even if MySpace does come up short of revenue goals, that should not sound the death knell for social network marketing. The conversation between brands and consumers has only just begun, and the advertising experimentation will continue.

Posted by brian tiong at 05:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

 (* Source: Kevin Purdy *)

Writing your blog should be a fun way to stretch your mind and stay connected to trends, friends, and the greater world, not another computer task that takes far too long to get done. But that's exactly what it can feel like if it takes you more time to find your post ideas, tweak your markup, and make everything look right than to actually get your thoughts down. Being somewhat experienced at this blogging thing, your Lifehacker editors have pinpointed a few tools and tricks that make our posts go faster and smoother. After the jump, we round up 10 of them.

10. Skip the copy/paste with AutoCopy

Many bloggers quote passages from other web pages, and referencing those snippets of language usually requires a Control/Command+C, then Control/Command+V once you're at the exact right place in your markup. Not so with AutoCopy, a free Firefox extension that automatically adds whatever text you've highlighted in your browser to the clipboard, then pastes it when you middle-click anywhere in Firefox. If you're not using a quick-blog tool like Tumblr, it might be the closest equivalent to the kind of speed-of-thought blogging that keeps writing from turning into a chore. (Original post)

9. Copy links and their titles with CoLT

When it comes time to post a relevant link at the end of most Lifehacker posts, the uninitiated (read: me, a few months ago) have to first copy the URL of the link, paste it in the right spot, then head back, copy the title of the linked page (being careful not to click!), then paste it inside the link tags. Those who have discovered the magic of the Copy Link Text Firefox extension, on the other hand, have magic right-click options that make grabbing the URL, the text, or both parts of a link dead simple. Give your right-click a rest and get back to adding context. (Original post)

8. Make reusable templates for posts and images

A lot of posts are, at least structurally, very similar, with a certain-size picture up top, a certain formatting for IM pastes or photo dumps, or similar repetitions. To save your time for real editing, try using Wired's guide to automating Photoshop actions. For hand-coding HTML, it pays to create templates out of your common formats (tables, unordered lists, picture posts) and plug them into a text-substitution app (see below for links and ideas). If you're tinkering with your site's design or layout, why re-invent the wheel? Grab a free template for Blogger, WordPress, or one of 40 general CSS templates for use on any site,. Need more? Check out Gina's roundup of seven different free HTML templates.

7. Live-blog from your phone with Jott

Free voicemail-to-text service Jott can help you nail down post material while you're on the go with a phone call, but you can also use the service directly with a number of blogging platforms, including Blogger, Typepad, LiveJournal, Tumblr, and WordPress. If you're hosting your own blog, you can still use Jott's voice-to-email service in conjunction with your platform's email-to-post function to indirectly get your thoughts up online, even while you're miles from your keyboard.

6. Automate repetitive code with text replacement

If you've ever manually embedded a Flickr photo, created a custom headline or signature template, or searched out previously-used code to copy and paste for your posts, you need to add a text replacement app to your stable. Any of them—Texter for Windows, TextExpander for Mac OS X, or Snippits for Linux—can quickly paste, while also preventing common typos and misspellings. If you just want to speed up your HTML coding, try Adam's Markdown automation script, a stand-alone, blog-focused precursor to Texter.

5. Get topic-based post ideas sent to your inbox every day with Google Alerts

Whether you write about a team, a certain topic, or a broad trend, Google Alerts brings your post material to you. Use the same kind of advanced search operators you use on Google's main search site to laser-focus on a particular kind of web site, blog post, news story, or group post you're looking for. Decide if it gets sent as fast as Google's servers find it, or in a daily or weekly email digest. Using Alerts exposes you to a wider array of information than you'd get from a defined list of RSS feeds, and it's an easy way to keep your eyes on the web without really being at the search box all day.

4. Spend less time resizing images

Few blogs can get by with just words alone, but finding the perfect image to illustrate a post—and then making it fit right—can take more time than the post itself. If you're not committed to Photoshop or its open-source alternative, GIMP, free online image editing site Picnik is a good bet, both for its right-click Firefox extension and its integration with Flickr. If you've got a whole set of pictures to post up, you can try the Windows-only ImageResizer, or for an elegant solution, use the export-and-resize functionality of Picasa. (For more on finding reusable images, see our six ways to find reusable media.

3. Keep post ideas synchronized with Foxmarks

Great posting fodder can be found at all hours of the day, but you're not always ready to post it at that exact moment. Use the Foxmarks bookmark synchronizer, and your bookmarks toolbar becomes a universal idea space you can drag-and-drop your links onto. Anyone who likes more control over their backed-up bookmarks can synchronize with their own server, and it can be rolled into a portable Firefox to help you get blogging done with just a thumb drive and some spare time. (Original post)

2. Quick post media (minimum writing required) with Tumblr

A tumblelog—that is, a quick-post blog powered by the Tumblr webapp—makes posting your thoughts, IM chats, videos, photos, and other favorite media tidbits a lot less intimidating than the wide-open HTML spaces of Wordpress, Movable Type, and other platforms (which are still great for longer, text-and-links posts). The real time-saver is Tumblr's bookmarklet, which makes capturing and preparing a new post a one-click affair. Here's more on keeping up an instant, no-overhead blog with Tumblr.

1. Bookmark and track email and posts with Gmail

Adam showed us back in the day how you could set up Gmail as a bookmarking service (using the Gmail this bookmarklet), but with Gmail's 2.0 version, it's even easier to throw the emails that inspire you to get blogging with your other links, as they have short, human-readable permalinks that you can easily drag into a bookmark folder. And, assuming your blog inspires some kind of feedback, you can keep it separated and organized from your day-to-day mail using filters and persistent searches.

Posted by brian tiong at 04:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Cliff Jones *) 

As record labels lose their way, bands are getting into bed with consumer brands. Is this the way of the future?

From boutique favourites such as Agent Provocateur and Joe Bloggs to icons of the global hyper-mall such as Diesel, Yahoo!, Audi and Coca-Cola, brands have awoken to music’s potential as a powerful communication tool, and a content gold rush is on. Under the “lifestyle” umbrella, household names are seeking out, signing and promoting music. And far from heralding a sellout, taking the corporate shilling may be the smartest career move a struggling artist can make. With unsigned MySpace hopefuls such as the singer-songwriter Tom Glynn partnering Caffè Nero for instore music and branded CDs, and big-name acts such as Madonna, Annie Lennox and Paul McCartney serving divorce proceedings on their labels as they “consider their commercial options”, brands are invading the ground left by the labels’ retreat.

 

“There’s no doubt we are at a crossroads,” says Steve Levine, producer of Culture Club and a spokesman for artists’ issues with the British Academy of Composers & Songwriters. Having consulted on brand-related music projects, he has seen a marked change in musicians’ attitudes: “It’s as if we’ve suddenly become aware of the truth behind the smoke and mirrors of the record deal. Most artists now understand how the business works and who their fans are. That is always going to be valuable to a brand. It’s certainly a freer, more equal relationship. Record companies have to own everything, because their whole model is based on selling records - ‘Is it a hit, will it make us our money back?’ If brands do nothing other than free musicians from the tyranny of needing a radio-friendly smash to have a career, it has to be a positive.”

 

It isn’t just financial necessity that is driving artists into the arms of some of our favourite household names. Joe Public’s relationship with brands has also shifted: we love them, and we don’t much care that they are colonising our lives. Marketing gurus have a term for it. According to them, we are all “cheerfully commercial” now. Yet, despite this, the dwindling budgets and the brutal roster-cleansing, the industry still appeared shocked when the dance duo Groove Armada gave into the siren call of Bacardi last month.

Their decision to leave Sony BMG and sign with the drinks giant sent a clear message to labels and brands alike that Bacardi saw a big future in taking its partnership with music beyond mere sponsorship. The one-year deal has the drinks giant releasing the band’s music through its own label and download platforms, as well as paying for a series of “parties” that GA will curate and headline.

“It feels very natural,” says Tom Findlay, one half of the dance duo. “Bacardi have a strong heritage in dance and putting on parties, and so do we. They’re offering a decent sum of money, we get to play in places we would not normally get to, and we keep the copyright in our recordings.”

What of the accusation that they have sold out? It seems everyone is too busy being “cheerfully commercial” to worry. “With sponsorship now such an essential part of the festival scene, it’s something I’m relatively comfortable with,” Findlay says.

The role of brand as benefactor and the structural changes in the music business reflect changes in how we perceive the value of music. The internet will eventually ensure that recorded music is largely free. Meanwhile, the emotional worth of music that makes up our personal soundtracks is as strong as ever. As the dust settles, managers, lawyers and producers will work with brands to bring new artists into the limelight.

Posted by brian tiong at 04:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source:  Jason Kincaid *)

Jason says... 

The race is on for software supremacy on Google’s Android platform, as developers compete to develop the applications that will eventually come preloaded on branded phones. Today TuneWiki, one of the most popular third-party developers for the iPhone, has announced a media player for Android that will feature an iPhone-esque interface, support for synching with iTunes, and the karaoke-like lyric functionality that put them on the map.

Owners of jailbroken iPhones may be familiar with TuneWiki already - As we mentioned last week, the iPhone version has seen “hundreds of thousands” of downloads since December 2007. The iPhone version of the software features a player that displays karaoke-style lyrics in time with songs in the device’s library. TuneWiki has partnered with Universal to provide lyrics legally, and has ongoing talks with other music labels.

The Android version of the software has the same karaoke synching, with added support for music videos that are synched with lyrics. While this is significant in itself, the real news here is the media player that will accompany the software. From the brief demonstration seen in the video below, the player seems to be every bit as usable as the one seen on the iPhone (it looks nearly exactly the same, which isn’t a bad thing).

Android may be an “Open” platform that will allow handset manufacturers (and possibly users) to install whatever applications they want, but we’re going to be seeing a few dominant leaders emerge in each space. There won’t be any shortage of iPhone-imitating apps, but TuneWiki has given itself a leg up by establishing a number of features that will be difficult to replicate. Whether or not these will be enough to lift TuneWiki above the rest of the pack remains to be seen.

Posted by brian tiong at 04:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Erik Schonfeld *) 

Patrick Grady has spent the past eight years of his life building the ultimate personal Web assistant in relative obscurity. But now his company, Rearden Commerce, is quietly emerging as major force among enterprise startups. He has confirmed that, as previously reported, Rearden has closed a $100 million round of funding from investors that include American Express, JPMorgan Chase, Oak Investment Partners, and Foundation Capital. American Express already invested in a previous round and is Rearden’s single largest customer—its corporate travel business resells Rearden’s all-in-one Web travel booking service to 1,300 corporate customers.

All in all, Rearden now offers its services to more than 1,700 corporations, up from 92 two years ago before signing AmEx as a partner. Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline alone has about 60,000 employees on Rearden. Collectively, those corporate customers have about one million employees using Rearden to book flights, cars, hotels, dinner reservations, baseball games, theater tickets, conference calls, and even ground shipping. (See our review from last year).

To put that into perspective, that is about the same number of employees who use Salesforce.com. Of that million, about 15 percent are active in a given month, and all together they are well on their way towards spending $1 billion on travel-related services this year through Rearden. That is a tenfold increase in transactions over last year, and every step of the way Rearden takes 6 percent to 25 percent of every non-travel dollar spent. Updated: The fees on travel transactions like flight and hotel are low-margin commodities. It’s the extra stuff like dining, event tickets, conferencing, car services, airport parking, meetings and shipping where there are more margin and more savings to be had that Rearden makes its 6 to 25 percent cut. It also has other revenue streams, including third-party apps and advertising (see below).

The company has 316 employees, going to 400 this year. Most of those are engineers, since AmEx has hundreds of sales people pushing the service. And AmEx will soon expand the offering to its UK customers as well. So far, Grady has built his business by signing up big enterprise customers. But now he is ready to take his first step towards the consumer market.

That’s where Chase comes in. In addition to being an investor, Chase has also signed on as Rearden’s second giant customer. It plans on offering Rearden’s personal Web concierge service to its 90 million bank card holders. Anyone with a Chase bank account, whether business or personal, will be able to use the service. Eventually, Grady plans on opening up the service to all consumers, but AmEx and Chase are making it worth his while to give them exclusivity for at least another year.

In addition to the transaction fees, he also charges application developers 25 percent to 50 percent of their subscription fees to gain access to all the corporate customers on Rearden. And he also sees an opportunity on the upside for highly targeted advertising in the form of real-time offers from local restaurants and other businesses. He explains:

I am coming to New York. What does my Rearden Commerce personal assistant know about me? It knows I am a CEO of a Silicon Valley company, I will be staying downtown, I will be in midtown during the day, and it knows I like sushi.

Rearden has done the hard job of integrating different travel services together all through a single browser interface. Updated: The hard part is not only the technology—which is all about integrating an unruly mess of APIs and Web services—rather it is signing commercially binding service level agreements with 135,000 merchants across the world. . What’s more the system ties in your personal preferences with your company’s travel rules, restrictions, and negotiated rates to give you a customized view of what’s available to you. Think of it as Kayak, TripIt, StubHub, Zagats, OpenTable, and WebEx all rolled into one. Updated: But instead of having to go to ten different sites to find and book a flight or a restaurant for a business meeting, Rearden provides a mash-up of all the services. The two slides below, which are from a presentation Grady gives, illustrate the scope of what Rearden is trying to accomplish:

Rearden might be an enterprise play, but its software already has a consumer look an feel. Today, the difference between the two experiences is fast going away. Grady says:

If this isn’t addictive, if people don’t find this to be like an iPhone or Blackberry, then we have failed. It is only a productivity tool if you, the user, think it is better than Kayak, StubHub,or Kayak. Addiction is job one.

Grady has come along way from surviving the nuclear winter back in 2001. At the time, one investor, Jafco, tried to sell the company behind his back. Grady had to do a cram-down round and fire 45 employees to stare Jafco down and keep control of the company. Despite raising $200 million total so far, he says he has never taken a dime off the table. That’s hardcore.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Duncan Riley *)

Moshi Monsters, from UK startup Mind Candy officially launched last week with a product that marries the ideas behind Neopets and Tamogotchi with a social network for kids.

Users adopt their own Monster and keep it happy by solving daily puzzles that are sent to each player. Monster owners can interact with their pets by tickling them, playing games, shopping, designing their rooms, and shortly by dressing them up. One core element being promoted for Moshi Monsters is the ability to build an emotional bond between the user and their Monster, which is achieved through flash animation and a complex behavioral engine. Monsters develop their own unique personalities depending on how well, or badly, they’ve been treated.

Players can connect and communicate with others through the Friends Tree, visits to other Monster rooms, Monster blogs, Newsfeeds, and a messaging system. The site is geared towards kids, so online safety is a top priority and the Moshi Monsters team monitors site activity to make sure it remains safe.

Now admittedly it sounds like Neopets or similar services with some social networking thrown in for good measure, but where Moshi Monsters stands out is with $10 million in backing from Index Ventures, Accel Partners, and Newmediaspark. Sure, money should never be the final judgement on any site, but well known VC firms think there’s something here worth investing in. I’m also no judge on what kids like (mine isn’t quite old enough yet to use this) so ultimately you (or your kids if you have any) can be the judge.

Posted by brian tiong at 03:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)