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Warner Bros. Doubles the UltraViolet Catalog
Two more movies are going to be released on UltraViolet, doubling the number of films available to users of the digital locker platform. When the Blu-ray version of "The Smurfs" and "Friends with Benefits" go on sale Dec. 2, the Sony Pictures’ films will have the capability to be shared across multiple home and mobile devices at no additional cost, using the DECE consortium’s licensed technology. The news was confirmed by John Calkins, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s executive vice president, Global Digital and Commercial Innovation.
Pepsi Picks Pongr for 'The X Factor'
Pepsi is using image-recognition technology from Pongr to power a competition tied to Wednesday’s debut of Simon Cowell’s "The X Factor." Fans photograph the show’s logo, which has been emblazoned on almost 300 million cases of Pepsi beverages, and submit the result via text or email. Pongr’s platform then checks out every image, filtering out those that don’t meet the contest’s criteria.
IHeartRadio Puts Lady Gaga on Xbox Live
The promotional juggernaut supporting this weekend's launch of the New iHeartRadio service continues to demonstrate Clear Channel Radio's clout. The latest evidence is a deal with Microsoft to offer an HD video stream of the entire two-day iHeartRadio Music Festival exclusively to the huge number of Xbox 360 owners.
Time-Shift Twitter with Rewinder [with Video]
The 63rd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards is a good example of what a very new app called Rewinder is good for. Rewinder lets viewers time-shift Twitter, so those who couldn’t watch the telecast live could have the relevant period of their Twitter stream scroll by as it happened while watching the recorded Emmys. Friends’ jokes, fashion observations and other comments would then appear just as they would have during the live experience.
Capital One Opens CityVille Branch
Capital One has integrated itself into three of Zynga’s most popular games, using recognizable elements from its TV commercials to deliver unique freebies and rewards that enhance the game for anyone who engages with them. One of the more innovative features is in "CityVille," where players can place a Capital One branded bank in their personal metropolis. Both companies said this opportunity was the first brand integration of its kind.
The CW Network Bings On the Fall TV Season
Microsoft and The CW Network have partnered on a mutual marketing campaign, “TV to Bing About,” timed to coincide with the beginning of the fall television season. The slogan is a hybrid of the CW’s “TV to Talk About” and Microsoft’s attempt to turn Bing into a verb, like that other search engine. The CW Network targets an 18 - 34 viewership and skews female, making it an attractive but increasingly difficult to reach demographic.
Raptr Analyzes 10 Million Gamers' Behavior
As the media coverage swarms around Facebook, Google+, Weibo, Renren, LinkedIn and others, targeted services like Raptr are connecting targeted people rather than the masses. That’s how the social network for gamers recently managed to reach the milestone of 10 million registered users, up from 6 million in February, with over 1 million of them active on a daily basis.
Xbox TV and the Mainstreaming of IPTV
Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer told a convention center full of financial analysts that Xbox TV will launch in time for this year’s holiday season. That would give families another reason to put an Xbox 360 on their gift list. He didn’t give any content specifics, but Ballmer did say it would be similar to what’s available via Xbox’s partnerships with Sky TV in the U.K., Canal Plus in France, and FoxTel in Australia.
BringIt Lets Players Wager on Facebook Games
It takes in-game currency to do well in many Facebook games. For those who have had enough of things like searching for berries or answering surveys, but who don’t want to get out a credit card, BringIt has comes up with a different way to get coinage: betting on head-to-head challenges. Among the companies signed up to use this feature of BringIt’s real-time transactional platform are CrowdStar, East Side Games, Sometrics and Mall World, with a combined reach of over 2.1 million daily active users.
Netflix Customers, Meet Your New DVD Service Qwikster [with video]
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings published a blog post Sunday evening, apologizing for how the company handled its recent price increase. His thoughts undoubtedly were concentrated by the precipitous drop in Netflix’s share price late last week. Hastings also took the opportunity to announce that Andy Rendich has been promoted to CEO of the physical disc rental operations, however, and that this service will be rebranded as Qwikster within the next few weeks. Additionally, Qwikster will begin to offer video game rentals alongside movies and TV shows.
