Microsoft v.Yahoo!; Alan Cohen to OMD; Viacom v. CBS and More in Today's MediaBizBuzz.com

Are we in a recession Despite the lowest consumer confidence ratings in 26 years our President doesn39t think so Word on the street Wall that is is that Bernanke39s going to quotpausequot this week like Petraeus offering perhaps one last quarterpoint cut then leaving the market to seek its equilibrium point This follows as the Euro lost ground for the first time in three years Bloomberg quotes a UBS analyst who seems to think that in economic terms the EU is about to see a world of pain but we39ve turned a corner While there is a factual basis for the term two consecutive quarters of GDP decline there is also an emotional corollary Without being reductionist let39s consider the possibility that the market is having growing pains as it catches up with technology In last week39s JackMyers ThinkTank Kayak39s Terry Jones said as much Right now we39re at a crossroads it39s nearly Pistols At Dawn for MicrosoftYahoo and fisticuffs in the gaming world between EA and TakeTwo Interactive There39s Democratic Primary fatigue as Obama and Clinton continue to square off one threatening to bloody the other even at the expense of party or Nation it39s in the imminent factionalism between Viacom and CBS Are the seams coming apart or are we simply preparing to morph into something without precedent both culturally and economically As Frank Rich pointed out in his column yesterday quotOnce our news culture sets a story in stone chances are it will crumblequot All we can do then is survey the landscape and listen to our instinctsGot GameIt39s apropos that our most escapist medium of entertainment should flourish in a recession Tomorrow will see the release of Grand Theft Auto IV Expectations 400M in the first week point of comparison Iron Man w Robert Downey Jr is tracking to do 70M over its three day May opening Despite being dogged by charges of misogyny by the likes of Hillary Clinton during her 3906 Senate reelection campaign research is beginning to bear out that violent games do not create school shooters If anything Drs Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K Olson argue in their Harvard Medical School study Grand Theft Children that kids who don39t play are at risk The muchhyped game release can only highlight the ongoing war of words between TakeTwo Interactive whose Rock Star division developed GTA and EA39s 2B hostile takeover Early game reviews are strong speaking of its quotcinematic experiencequot and quotnarrative storytellingquot Reuters pegs global game revenue by 2010 at 475B Grand Theft Auto39s Special Sauce TakeTwo pioneered quotopen world gamingquot in GTA 3 back in 2001 The franchise is so successful that there39s even a network effect on game consoles and PCs sold and yes soundtrack music created for the experience Yahoo v Microsoft The Last MileSteve Ballmer39s quotYahoo submitquot deadline quietly passed over the weekend As earnings came in for both Yahoo and MSFT analysis of the deal tilted even if just a wee bit With a modest uptick in profits Yahoo converted a skeptic at the New York Times and with MSFT39s less than blistering growth BusinessWeek went so far as to opine that it is Microsoft that needs Yahoo Not everyone agrees CNet continues to find fault with Yang and Decker as poor replacements for Semel Kara Swisher of AllThingsD finds that Yahooligans are so mired that they just want the deal done Silicon Alley Insider exhaustively takes the temperature of anyone remotely connected with the deal publishing Microsoft39s reported list of its Yahoo director slate set up for the proxy fight Yahoo must meet by July Despite indicating that it would not raise its bid 31share or 44B SAI finds a Citi analyst who39s confident that they39ll up the price because they have no Plan B Meanwhile Y39s AdSense test is moving along and Google39s counsel is confident to go on the record that there won39t be an antitrust hiccup since it39s a nonexclusive deal Brownie points the new Yahoo Open Strategy YOS sort of an antiPeanut Butter Manifesto is embraced by TechCrunch and the Times39 Bits blog MESH Is Not Something From Project RunwayWhile Microsoft is mewling that the uncertainty over the Yahoo deal is depressing its stock the crowd has certainly turned on Vista Consumers hate it especially its User Access Control UAC which sort of acts like a reverse personalization MSFT39s launch of MESH is really big news but the critics are divided What praytell is MESH If you don39t have time to read the CNet FAQ it39s a virtual desktop that can be accessed by networked PCs TechCrunch writes that it quotreasserts the primacy of clientbased appsquot but to many that39s the problem While MESH creator Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie recently shared an epiphany that it is the Web not the PC that is the center of the tech universe Silicon Alley Insider39s Hank Williams believes that MSFT is hedging its bets and betting against the Clouds Can You See Me NowUSAT reports that full length video on mobile is going gangbusters It touts that 47 of viewers are spending 15 minutes a session 25 are on for a halfhour It looks at how ATampampT is upgrading their offerings mentioning PIX its new movie channel Our Shelly Palmer is contrarian He looks at the cratering of Pivot a project that saw Cox TW and Comcast join up with SprintNextel as Exhibit A Perhaps Google39s new Mobile Ad Banners will validate the space Despite the delay of the 3G Blackberry Apple39s imminent nextgen iPhone release will yet save us all Songs In The Key Of LifeThe iTunes store turns 5 today Wired bolsters InStat39s claim that it39s poised to own 28 of ALL music purchases not just digital by 2012 PaidContent reports that Sony has acquired Gracenote for 260M the last of the independents in the music metadata space Billboard praises EMI39s reorg even as it moves to layoff 2000 employees MSN Music Service has a PR problem As of August 31st it will no longer provide DRM keys to users that legally purchased and downloaded music thereby becoming the poster child on why DRM is bad and the RIAA cannot be trusted Update Your PlaxoEffective June 1st Alan Cohen becomes CEO of OMD USA After 7 years as CEO of Omnicom39s digital agency Organic Paul Kingdon replaces Phil Rosedale as head of Second Life39s Linden Lab Nielsen Co will have its first CMO John Burbank leaves that position at AOL Much speculation over David Verklin39s stepping down from Aegis even as Carat CEO Sarah Fay has been anointed his heir apparent Innuendo It seems that Mr Verklin might be joining Project Canoe as its CEO Congress Fillets FCC HeadFCC Chairman Kevin Martin spent two days at the Senate last week He was upbraided by Jane Harman for the Wireless Spectrum auction39s failure to sell the quotDblockquot earmarked for public safety He was reprimanded for relaxing crossownership rules bringing together Trent Lott with Hillary Clinton AND Barack Obama even as he agreed that Comcast probably did throttle traffic Vuze which started the ball rolling on this front found that the biggest eight ISPs all disrupted traffic on Friday ATampampT denied this Attorneys General from four states CT WA MD OH are asking Martin to create free satellite radio despite DoJ approval for a XMSirius merger Finally the Senate Commerce Committee added 65M to go to lowpowered TV stations as we switch over to digital Who says this is a donothing Congress Just Greenlighted The Sumner Redstone Reality Show It39s a drama with more plot twists than CSI or repercussions than The Tudors In announcing that Viacom will be launching a fourth pay TV channel Philippe Dauman has set a thousand tongues wagging Does this auger that Les Moonves coming off CBS News39 worst ratings ever is no longer Sumner39s favorite son Multichannel News thinks its success especially in this economic climate is an uphill battle The New York Post39s Peter Lauria muses how this will affect the TV distribution plans of The Weinstein Co The LA Times has it on good authority that former SHO exec Mark Greenberg will head the network but BusinessWeek has the money quote quotMark getting this job is definitely another f you to Mattquot Online Video Are We There YetNewTeeVee found that VCs love online video still Last year 68 startups garnered 4605M Q1 saw them raise 2173M Not too shabby The Guardian thinks that Hulu39s ability to make and send content clips is RAD While CEO Jason Kilar aspires that it become the quotworld39s best monetization source for premium contentquot exhale I39m really intrigued by the beta launch of Blinkbox which permits mashups of clips Was Dawn Ostroff right to pull online streaming of the CW39s Gossip Girl Our Nina Spezzaferro has been following the blowback and thinks not so much SAI looks at the ratings slightly down from 25M to 244 viewers Memo to Ostroff Innovation isn39t reactionary it39s forward looking Forbes has a roundup on the movement of Internet video from the PC directly to your home entertainment center Last week Broadband Enterprises announced a partnership with ScanScout that will enable it to implement the latter39s overlay technology as part of its overall plan to expand video advertising opportunities and consequently increase revenue to BBE39s network of content providers The Future of Media and Entertainment Realities of Dealing with the Changing Media Marketplace All of this movement in the Online Video space makes tomorrow39s JackMyers networking breakfast timely Our panel will include Sarah Fay CEO Carat and Isobar US Dina Kaplan COO bliptv Jack Haber VP Global Advertising and eBusiness Colgate Palmolive Company Albie Hecht CEO Worldwide Biggies and Shane Steele Consultant and former CocaCola head of Interactive Marketing While this is a soldout event look for video up on JackMyerscom to be made available following the event

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