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Textbook company looking to integrate texts on Blackboard

Wired Magazine reported today that Flat World Knowledge, an open-source textbook publisher, will integrate its books into Learning Management Systems such as Blackboard and ANGEL.

MySpace turns over 90,000 names of convicted sex offenders

The New York Times reports that MySpace gave two attorney generals the names of 90,000 sex offenders the company banned from the site. The amount was 40,000 more than MySpace acknowledged previously.

MySpace’s disclosure follows a report by the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, a panel created by 49 attorneys general, that said the issue is overblown. It concluded the problem of bullying among children, both online and offline, was far more serious than sexual solicitation of minors by adults online.

Facebook is also working with the two attorney generals.

TV's New Age of Opportunity

Here's a little something different than the gloom and doom state of the industry that we've been hearing. Dare I say it's almost optimistic... This is from a speech given at NATPE last week. There's also a link to the full speech if you'd care to read all of it.

News Corp to cut jobs in London, New York

The Financial Times reports that the media company (which owns the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers) is cutting back staff.

WSJ: Michigan See Itself in the Movies

The Wall Street Journal reports that Michigan will use an old General Motors factory as a movie production facility, which will eventually employ 3,600 people. There are plenty of old GM factories in Indiana...maybe we should do the same thing.

Phantom 2

This is a little old, and not directly related to media but I felt it was worth posting.

Broadway may be many things today (vapid, derivative, unoriginal), but now it's about to be something new: sequel laden.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28426152/

Online entertainment sees increase in traffic

According to the Wall Street Journal, online games, gambling sites and social networking sites have seen a surge since the economy started declining.

The number of visitors to online game sites jumped 29.9% during the fourth quarter of last year, compared with a 0.3% decline during the same period the prior year, according to comScore Inc. Traffic on Internet gambling sites soared 28.6% over the holiday quarter, compared with a 26.9% decline over the holiday season the previous year, comScore says.

Multi-Platform Entertainment Service to Launch This Year

According to Business Wire, Studio 3 Networks have announced the launch of a new next-generation entertainment service, “epix.” The New York Times reports that while the service will be available online in May, it currently lacks cable and satellite distribution. It could pose a threat to other premium channels, offering films sooner after theatrical release as well as having exclusive access to movies released by Paramount since January 2008 (the studio’s deal with Showtime ended the previous year) and those by MGM, United Artists and Lionsgate from the start of this year.

Music Industry Troubled by Apple

According to The New York Times, the music industry continues to question Apple’s dominance as a music distributor despite a recent deal regarding pricing and copy protection.

Make money for your Tweets

A new application called Twippr allows people to pledge cash toward a Tweet. It looks as though the application is competing with PayPal, but in what they call "micropayments" (to keep with the Twitter microblogging theme).

Newspaper Web sites grow, but revenue declines

Newspaper Web sites are doing better than ever, but revenues are still declining. According to the Newspaper Association of America, citing Nielsen statistics, says unique visitors are up 12 percent. The LA Times saw a 73 percent increase from 2007 to 2008.

SNL Shows the Future of Advertising

This article was the best I could find on the topic, but I wanted to get something out there about this topic. A lot of the speakers at NATPE this year talked about a desperate need to rethink traditional advertising to counteract people skipping ads with their DVRs. Saturday Night Live used characters and scenarios from a reoccurring sketch last night to advertise for Pepsi. I stopped fast forwarding through commercials when the MacGruber commercial started because I thought SNL was back on. The noticble lack of audience laughter and the over the top product placement let me know that I was actually watching an ad, but not until the 30 second spot was done. Sneaky! Depending on how well the ad did we could be seeing a lot more of these kinds of advertisement in the coming months.

MacGruber Shills For Pepsi