DirecTV and Viacom deal brings MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and the rest back on the air
After a week or so of increasingly contentious negotiations Viacom and DirecTV have come to some sort of agreement, returning the missing channels to satellite TV subscribers as of… now. Naturally, each side is sticking to its guns, and even with a long term deal inked they still disagree on the number of channels involved.
So who won? The exact financial numbers have not been revealed, but you can check out the dueling press releases after the break. The contested Epix package is an option (but not a requirement) for DirecTV, while the satellite broadcaster is happily adding access to Viacom content on mobiles, PCs and “other media devices” as a part of its DirecTV Everywhere service. Thanks to support from other pay TV providers, DirecTV is taking the more aggressive position, but we’ll wait for the inevitable “people in a position to know” to chime in with some dollars and cents figures before calling a victor.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/20/directv-viacom-agreement-epix-mtv-vh1-comedy-central-nick/
Viacom Is Said To Get Over $600 Million A Year From DirecTV
Viacom Inc. (VIAB) will get more than $600 million a year from DirecTV (DTV) in programming fees under their new seven-year agreement, up at least 20 percent from the previous terms, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-20/viacom-directv-reach-new-program-fee-agreement-ending-blackout.html
Kayak shares pop 14% to $30.10 in first trade (and climbing), online travel firm valued at $1b+ in IPO
The stock of online travel site Kayak.com just commenced trading on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol KYAK. At its public debut, the share price promptly soared more than 14 percent to $30.10, giving the company a market cap of $1 billion. At the time of publication, shares were up 22.3 percent (and rising).
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/07/20/kayak-shares-pop-14-to-30-10-in-first-trade-online-travel-firm-valued-at-more-than-1-billion/
Where’s Azure, and 4 other takeaways from Microsoft’s earnings
For all of Microsoft’s huge investment in the Azure cloud computing platform, there was scarcely mention of the multi-billion-effort on Thursday’s fourth quarter and fiscal year 2012 earnings call. Here are the top five takeaways from the call.
http://gigaom.com/cloud/wheres-azure-and-4-other-takeaways-from-microsofts-earnings/
YouTube restores Obama videos, refuses to explain takedown policies
Four YouTube videos that had apparently been taken down earlier this week due to dubious copyright claims by the music publisher BMG Rights Management have once again become available to American audiences.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/youtube-restores-obama-videos-refuses-to-explain-takedown-policies/
Fred Wilson is wrong about “Free”
Fred Wilson is one the smartest, most genuine people in the tech business. He has a huge fan club that he has earned by being radically transparent and consistently engaging in public debate. I have emailed with him a few times over the years, and actually met him and shook his hand a few weeks ago. I think Fred Wilson is awesome, and if I saw him on the street today I would walk up and shake his hand again. One great thing about people like Fred is that you can have respectful disagreements and debates with them, without it devolving into a non-constructive flamewar.
http://daltoncaldwell.com/fred-wilson-is-wrong-about-free
Senators soften latest cyber security measure
Lawmakers remove regulatory aspects and add privacy protections for information sharing, in a bid to get Republican approval for legislation aimed at protecting critical infrastructure from cyberattacks.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57476215-38/senators-soften-latest-cyber-security-measure/
Apple Yanks Privacy App From The App Store
Back in May of this year, Internet security firm Bitdefender launched an App and service designed to help iOS users get a grip on what the apps installed on their mobile devices may be up to.
http://www.securityweek.com/apple-yanks-privacy-app-app-store
Test Firefox OS on a desktop computer with new B2G nightly builds
Mozilla is creating a new kind of mobile operating system that is aligned with standards-based Web technologies. The platform, called Firefox OS, consists of the Gecko HTML rendering engine, a thin hardware enablement layer built on the Linux kernel, and a user interface layer called Gaia that is implemented entirely in HTML and JavaScript.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/07/test-firefox-os-on-a-desktop-computer-with-new-b2g-nightly-builds/
“Yes, Keep Moving”: Marissa Mayer’s First Memo to Yahoos (Natch!)
While I might abandon my internal memo-quest at Yahoo at some point soon, I wanted to make sure to post the very first one from newly installed — andextraordinarily well-paid — CEO Marissa Mayer.
http://allthingsd.com/20120719/yes-keep-moving-marissa-mayers-first-memo-to-yahoos-natch/
