The Hollywood Reporter reports: “Amazon has decided to split the location of its second headquarters between New York City and the suburbs of Washington, D.C., the e-commerce giant announced Tuesday, ending its year-long search for a new corporate home for thousands of its employees.”
Variety reports: “Here comes Ripkord.tv, another player looking to crash the craze over live-streaming interactive game shows — but the startup’s founders say it’s different from the rest of the field. Inspired by Twitch and HQ Trivia, Ripkord.tv is aiming to build an interactive entertainment network that blends mobile gaming, live video and TV-style games shows.”
Variety reports: “Roku has added videos from TMZ, The Young Turks, America’s Funniest Home Videos, FailArmy and a number of other publishers to its ad-supported Roku Channel this week. The company also included some niche sports publishers, a first for the channel that focused almost exclusively on movies and TV shows at launch.”
The Hollywood Reporter reports: “With outsize promises, the company lured massive investment from the likes of Warner Bros. and Legendary, but so far its hottest product seems to be hype. The studios hadn’t gotten this excited about a new piece of tech since the 3D moviemaking craze of the early 2000s.”
Variety reports: “Esports Arena, North America’s first dedicated esports facility, recently announced it’s bringing competitive gaming to Walmart shoppers. It plans to open and operate five arenas within Walmart stores. The first three are in Roseville, Calif., Spokane Valley, Wash., and Colorado Springs, Col. Two additional locations will arrive at a later date.”
Tech Crunch reports: “Disney’s new streaming service will be called Disney+. Disney+ will launch in ‘late’ 2019 — which makes sense, as that’s right around the time Disney’s remaining contractual ties with Netflix come to an end. Disney also dropped news about two new series.”
Gamesindustry.biz reports: “Shares of Activision Blizzard took another hit last night in the wake of the firm’s latest financial results. While the publisher’s net income is on the rise, its revenues, bookings and monthly active users all dipped. Bloomberg reports this caused an 11 per cent drop in its share price.”
Billboard reports: “Over a year after acquiring middle market competitor Ticketfly for $200 million from Pandora, Eventbrite has announced a new ticketing solution specifically designed for independent music venues, promoters and festivals. Dubbed Eventbrite Music, the new solution is built on top of Eventbrite’s existing platform and promises to deliver the best aspects of Eventbrite and Ticketfly into one app for independent organizers, as they move towards sunsetting the latter brand in 2019.”
Variety reports: “Vice Media, under recently installed CEO Nancy Dubuc, is in for some belt-tightening. The company, looking to cut costs amid a revenue slowdown, has instituted a hiring freeze and is aiming to reduce the size of its employee base over the next year, sources confirmed.”
Tech Crunch reports: “Spotify’s artist dashboard already allows musicians and their managers a way to track the success of their tracks and album releases, as well as view other data about their fans. Now, the streaming music service is debuting its first analytics tool aimed at music publishers. The new tool is launching into beta this morning.”
