By now you’ve probably seen the Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel pondering the wonders of the Internet. It’s a bit hokey and of course shows the NBC hosts talking nonsense about something outside of their expertise. Well, NBC clearly didn’t find it as cute as everyone else and reportedly fired the employee that uploaded it. Best Buy almost did that once. Remember how that turned out?
NBC went and pulled most of the videos from the Internet. The video we embedded is dead. But of course they couldn’t get them all. Simply searching Google for Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel pulls dozens of copies. Nothing ever goes away online. NBC should know this by now. It’s called the Internet. → Read More
The title of this post is both a very old idea and a very new one. With the prevalence of fiber connectivity and pervasive broadband speeds, this year has been a hot one for bringing together the home computer and the living room TV. While companies like Apple and Google battle over share of TV viewers, they have left open and promoted the web for content distributors to control their own experience through HTML (and, especially, HTML5).
To that end, it looks like Apple has one-upped Google by opting to privately pre-arrange distribution deals with traditional studio networks beginning with ABC and FOX, while Google has no deals in place at all, hoping the networks will just “allow” consumers to watch Web videos on their TVs. But Google TV is getting a slap in the face from several networks who pulled the plug, right on the big release day. Just as reviews were rolling out in favor of Google’s new living room effort, ABC, CBS and NBC are exiting stage left.
As for the rest of the world, you can’t stop us. Developers of Web video distribution platforms forge ahead. Apple is offering to lure them in with partnerships, Google is giving them the opportunity to figure it out for free. Neither Apple nor Google, nor anyone else is waiting any longer. The time is now. You can feel it. The rest of the video world marches on, bringing the internet and the TV closer together. → Read More
DONE! Ventures, a Manhattan Beach, California-based Internet marketing and publishing firm, is slapping NBC Universal with a lawsuit after a domain name sales deal went awry.
DONE! CEO Ben Padnos claims NBC Universal accepted an offer to sell the domain names Women.com and Women.net for $1 million, only to have President & CEO Jeff Zucker overrule and block the transaction after the agreement was reached.
The complaint, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday, June 3, alleges breach of contract on those grounds. → Read More
“This summer is going to be dangerous for anyone else in this space!”
That’s what Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley had to say when I spoke to him earlier about the service. Crowley is known for being outspoken. But he’s usually not that outspoken. But maybe he has reason to be.
I reached out to Crowley to ask him about NBC promoting Foursquare today. As you may have heard, The Today Show promoted a new partnership with the service earlier today (and did so on-air). But NBC itself also appears to be ready to heavily promote the service. This new mysterious “Fan It” site due to launch in 3+ days, implies partnerships with four main players: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and yes, Foursquare. That’s quite a crowd that Foursquare has been added to. And they know it. → Read More
Fresh from inking a deal with Dailymotion, one of the world’s largest video sites, The Filter, a startup with a white label discovery engine for digital entertainment, has a new commercial partnership with NBC.com to power the short-form video recommendations for its broadcast network website.
The Filter’s technology will bubble up relevant video from NBC’s catalog, creating easier discovery for users. So, more views for 30 Rock, and The Office then. After NBC trialled The Filter’s recommendation and relevance platform they say they found an uplift in video streams per session, hence the deal.
The Filter’s main business model is a white label personalisation engine for mass audiences and thus needs content partnerships like this to prove its technology scales into the billion-request level. → Read More
It was no surprise that the Olympics was a ratings blockbuster for NBC. The network’s ratings more than doubled during February Sweeps, up 105% from last year, according to Nielsen and RBC Capital Markets research. The interesting footnote, however, is GE’s cross-platform success on the Web and mobile. According to RBC Capital Market’s latest report, “Media and Entertainment: 1Q10 Preview & Outlook,” one third of the people watching the Olympics on their television were also on NBC’s website.
We may have stomped our feet and threw Twitter tantrums in response to NBC’s frustrating coverage—including chronic tape delays and the never-ending parade of the Marriage Ref. ads (Kelly Ripa’s laugh still echoes in my head)—but we watched, we clicked and we downloaded again and again. We watched Kim Yu-Na win the gold medal on live television then checked commentary online, we tracked the live blogging of the alpine skiers and watched a live web stream of curling. When we weren’t online many of us were fiddling with our Olympics iPhone apps. → Read More
Looks like nobody in the TV industry wants the NBCU-Comcast merger to go down. And who could blame them! ABC, CBS, and Fox affiliates are afraid that, if the merger goes down, it’ll cause the clouds to darken and the streets to run red with the blood of something or other. Basically, they’re scared that the merger will put the in a very bad position indeed. → Read More
Software testing marketplace uTest today announced the results of its so-called “TV Networks Bug Battle” competition. More than 500 software professionals from 30 countries around the world participated in the quarterly competition, reporting a total of 908 technical, functional and GUI bugs in the web and mobile apps of NBC, CBS, Fox and ABC.
Testers were challenged to search the sites for bugs – performing a combination of exploratory, functional and usability testing. → Read More
Well, it was fun for a whole lot of people while it latest, but the “Here’s what I wanna show Jay Leno” thread is gone forever. NBC no doubt pulled it after the pro-Conan shenanigans got out of hand and attracted the attention of Internet media. You’re just no fun at all, NBC. → Read More
NBC clearly doesn’t get it. Don’t invite the Internet to “post photos, ideas, links, and other things” they want to show to Jay Leno after canning Conan. This is what happens. → Read More
The coverage of the Winter Olympics on NBC has been painful to watch. In addition to the tape delays which ruined the outcomes for anyone paying attention to any other news, sports or social media outlet other than NBC, there are a lot of other complaints. In between the hard-hitting reports of polar bears in the Canadian North and life among the lumberjacks, NBC did manage to squeeze in some actual Winter games, which were matched in quantity by the constant loop of the same handful of commercials on heavy rotation for McDonald’s, Visa, AT&T, Diet Coke, and NBC’s upcoming shows Parenthood and the Marriage Ref. (Thank goodness for DVRs).
We already know that NBC’s handling of its Olympics coverage sucks, if only because everyone on Twitter says so. Right now, Twitter Sentiment shows that 73 percent of Tweets about “NBC Olympics” are negative. But what are they complaining about exactly, and is it just Twitter? Some new data from Crimson Hexagon, another sentiment analysis service for brands, shows the breakdown of hate: → Read More
NBC is driving people on the Internet crazy by tape-delaying coverage of the Olympics until primetime. Okay, maybe it’s only driving Henry Blodget crazy, and everyone on Twitter.
Well, not everyone on Twitter—68 percent, according to a recent reading I took on Twitter Sentiment. Roughly two thirds of Tweets about the NBC Olympics are negative. Some examples of the venting occurring on Twitter about NBC’s delayed Olympics coverage: → Read More
The 2010 Winter Olympics kick off in Vancouver tonight, and for those of you who can’t be tied to your TV every night to watch the opening and closing ceremonies and competitions, here’s a compilation of sites where you can not only watch video highlights of the events but also see pictures, scores, medal counts and news from the Olympics: → Read More
This is it. Tonight’s edition of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien will be the last one starring Coco. Come March 1, Mr. Bland himself, Jay Leno, re-takes the show, placating NBC’s affiliates and his elderly fans. We’re all Team Conan here, till the bitter end, so you’d better not miss it tonight. Watch it live, DVR it, watch it on Hulu, grab it off some torrent site… just watch it. Conan shall rise again~! → Read More
Game over, friends. NBC just released a statement saying it had reached a deal with Conan O’Brien that sees him bumped off The Tonight Show and bumped into a large sack of money worth $45 million. Of that $45 million, Conan will keep $33 million, the rest of which will go to his 200+ person staff as severance. Conan’s free to start a new show as of September, 2010. Oh, and Leno comes back to The Tonight Show on March 1. → Read More
All of us here at CrunchGear are fairly angry at the way NBC has treated you, Conan. So here’s our offer: if you and the peacock decide to part company (and you really ought to, provided the network takes care of your staff and everyone else who moved from New York to Los Angeles, and provided you walk away with some fat cash), we’d like to offer you an internship. That’s right: Conan O’Brien, CrunchGear intern. That has a nice ring to it, no? → Read More
We forgot to mention this, but if you want to buy Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show set make your way to Craigslist. Conan is asking for your best offer, or Coldplay tickets if you’re willing to trade. Boo, NBC! → Read More
Comcast and General Electric announced early this morning that they agreed to form a joint venture that will be 51 percent owned by Comcast and 49 percent by GE. The joint venture, which will consist of the NBC Universal businesses and Comcast’s cable networks, regional sports networks and more, will be managed by the newly formed Comcast Entertainment Group (CEG).
GE will contribute to the joint venture NBCU’s businesses valued at $30 billion, including its cable networks, filmed entertainment, televised entertainment, theme parks, and unconsolidated investments, subject to $9.1 billion in debt. Comcast will put in its cable networks (including E!, Versus and the Golf Channel), its ten regional sports networks, and certain digital media properties, collectively valued at $7.25 billion. Comcast has also agreed to pay GE approximately $6.5 billion in cash. → Read More
NBC is gearing up for the 2010 Winter Olympics with some changes to its mainstay site, NBCOlympics.com, scheduled to go live tomorrow. (See screenshots below). Once again, just as it did with the 2008 Summer Olympics, NBC will be using a video player based on Microsoft Silverlight technology to offer full HD videos. Except this time, the video player will have DVR-like functionality, with the ability to rewind the video, highlight clips and save them.
The video player will also incorporate Facebook Connect, to allow people to chat with their friends as they are watching the events. NBC expects the addition of Facebook chat to make the videos a more social and engaging experience, and also hopes viewing times will subsequently increase. → Read More
Oh, dear. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was on The Today Show (international viewers: The Today Show is a morning news and entertainment program that airs on NBC, a big TV network here) to unveil Windows 7. Call me crazy, but isn’t that a first-gen MacBook Pro in the background? Good job, NBC! → Read More
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