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DIGITAL MEDIA WIRE -- Oct. 5, 2000
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o iBEAM Acquires NextVenue For $375 Million
o Hollywood.com Makes $4.25 Million Private Stock Placement
o Sega Acts To Shut Down Pirate Gaming Sites
o Flexxtech Acquires Set-Top Box Developer OpiTV.com For $2.75 Million
o iPIX Receives Japanese Investment, Opens Office In Japan
o Reelplay.com Receives Investment From PSINet Ventures
o Briefly Noted: "Streaming Media Europe," Rollingstone.com -
Ticketmaster
Online-Citysearch, World Cyber Games Tournament, Vitaminic - Indie Labels,
TVWorldwide.com - J. Geils Jazz Quartet, Studionext.com, Front Porch
Digital
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o iBEAM Acquires NextVenue For $375 Million
Sunnyvale, Calif. -- iBEAM, a streaming media network, announced that it
has acquired NextVenue, a streaming media provider for financial markets,
for $375 million in stock. Sunnyvale-based iBEAM provides streaming media
services such as distribution and live webcasting to over 400 clients; as
a result of the acquisition, the company said its new clients include
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Charles Schwab, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch,
Salomon Smith Barney and Citigroup. "The entertainment space is and
always
will be a key part of any streaming media network's business," said
Peter
Desnoes, president and CEO of iBEAM. "But a streaming media network
must
offer services to the corporate and financial world in order to be a true
leader."
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/001004/ca_ibeam.html
http://www.ibeam.com
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o Hollywood.com Makes $4.25 Million Private Stock Placement
Boca Raton, FL -- Hollywood.com, an entertainment site, announced on
Thursday that it has raised $4.25 million through a private placement of
its stock. A group of institutional and individual investors contributed;
Mitchell Rubenstein, chairman and CEO of Hollywood.com, and media analyst
Paul Kagan were among the individual investors. Boca Raton-based
Hollywood.com offers entertainment content as well as online ticketing
services to users. The publicly-traded company recently laid off 30 of its
Santa Monica-based employees, and predicted that it will be profitable by
the first quarter of 2001.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001005/fl_hollywo.html
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o Sega Acts To Shut Down Pirate Gaming Sites
San Francisco -- Sega of America is acting to shut down web sites that
offer information about pirated copies of games for its Dreamcast console,
CNET reported. The company said that it has sent cease-and-desist letters
to a number of web sites that offer information on pirated games,
prompting many of the sites to shut down. Isonews, one of the sites that
received a letter from Sega, said that the company's request amounts to a
"prior restraint" violation of the First Amendment, the article
said.
Prior restraint says that a publication may be sued for publishing libel
or illegal content, such as copyrighted material, only after it has been
published. The letters sent by Sega seek to shut down some public online
bulletin boards on which users have occasionally posted illegal content.
"Really this is a wholesale attack on the concept of unmoderated
forums
because they theoretically allow people to post information about
copyrighted material," said Jennifer Granick, a lawyer for Isonews,
in the
article. "By that logic, you could shut down Usenet newsgroups. You
could
shut down AOL's forums."
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-2931893.html
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o Flexxtech Acquires Set-Top Box Developer OpiTV.com For $2.75 Million
Los Angeles -- OpiTV.com, a developer of digital set-top boxes that
connect televisions to the Internet, announced on Thursday that it has
been acquired by Flexxtech, an Internet investment company, for $2.75
million in stock. Las Vegas-based OpiTV.com is developing set-top boxes
that need only a television and a phone line to connect to the Internet.
It plans to rent, rather than sell, the boxes to consumers.
http://www.opitv.com
http://www.flexxtech.com
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o iPIX Receives Japanese Investment, Opens Office In Japan
Oak Ridge, Tenn. -- iPIX, a developer of Internet video technology,
announced on Thursday that it has received an undisclosed investment from
Softbank E-Commerce Corp. iPIX said that Softbank, an Internet holding
company will take a minority stake in the company. Tennessee-based iPIX
develops 360-degree video technology for "virtual tours" of
various
locations, and provides image technology for online auctioneer eBay.com.
The company said that it will open an office in Japan that will provide
wireless services.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001005/ipix_expan.html
http://www.ipix.com
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o Reelplay.com Receives Investment From PSINet Ventures
Los Angeles -- Reelplay.com, an online B2B marketplace for the film
industry, announced on Thursday that it has received an investment from
Virginia-based PSINet Ventures. The amount of the investment was not
disclosed. LA-based Reelplay.com provides a database of 12,000
entertainment products, and said it has created more than 3,000 web sites
for the entertainment industry.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/001004/ca_reelpla.html
http://www.reelplay.com
http://www.psinet.com
_____________________________________________
o Briefly Noted:
(London) "Streaming Media Europe," a trade show and conference
on a wide
variety of topics on streaming media, will be held from October 10-12 at
the Earls Court Centre in London. The event will feature keynote addresses
from executives including Rob Glaser, CEO of RealNetworks, and Martin
Tobias, founder and CEO of Loudeye. Streaming Media Europe is produced by
Streaming Media, which was acquired by Penton Media this week.
http://www.streamingmedia.com/europe
(Chicago) Rollingstone.com announced on Thursday that it has partnered
with Pasadena-based Ticketmaster Online-Citysearch to provide concert
tours and ticketing information on Rollingstone.com. Chicago-based
Rollingstone.com, the online version of Rolling Stone magazine, was
acquired by online music site EMusic.com in November 1999.
http://www.rollingstone.com
(Seoul, Korea) Battletop.com, an online service that provides competitive
rankings for players of Internet games, announced on Thursday that it is
partnering with Samsung to hold the World Cyber Games Tournament in Seoul,
Korea. The company said two hundred international contestants will compete
in video games such as FIFA 2000, Quake III and Unreal Tournament for
$200,000 in prizes.
http://www.battletop.com
(San Francisco) Vitaminic, a downloadable music site, announced on
Thursday that it has added songs from artists on independent record labels
Reality Records and Spin Records to its site. San Francisco-based
Vitaminic provides downloadable music from 15,000 artists on 400 labels.
http://www.vitaminic.com
(Chantilly, VA) TVWorldwide.com, a streaming video provider, announced on
Thursday that it will offer a live concert webcast of the J. Geils Jazz
Quartet, using 360 degree video technology. Virginia-based TVWorldwide.com
provides entertainment and business streaming video services to its
customers. Cupertino, Calif.-based Be Here will provide the 360 degree
Internet video technology, which allows users to control the camera's
panoramic perspective.
http://www.tvworldwide.com
http://www.behere.com
(New York) Studionext, a provider of production services for online
digital video, announced on Thursday that Ira Deutchman will serve as its
first CEO. Deutchman founded Fine Line Features, a division of movie
studio New Line Cinema.
http://www.studionext.com
(Cherry Hill, N.J.) Front Porch Digital, a broadband digital media
distributor, has announced that Jean Reiczyk will serve as its new CEO.
Previously, Reiczyk was vice president and general manager of StorageTek's
Solutions Business Group.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/001004/nj_front_p.html
http://www.fpdigital.com
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