Thompson On Hollywood

Trailering Bond: He's Out for Revenge

Spielberg May Reunite with Semel

Ex-Yahoo chief Terry Semel has long been close with Steven Spielberg, ever since the studio exec's long tenure running Warner Bros. with Bob Daly. So it makes sense that he and Spielberg would co-venture on a tech start-up like Ghosts, Spielberg's planned social network centered around UFOs, paranormal activity and extraterrestrials, per Tech Crunch.

Wired: Anderson Goes for Free!

In his April cover story, Wired editor Chris Anderson expounds on the new free economy, citing Yahoo, Google, Craig's List and other examples of wildly successful enterprises that provide free services. This article will surely chill the blood of entertainment execs who are terrified that all their hard-won revenue streams will trickle into nothing if they are forced to make their costly content available for free. As DVD sales continue to decline, what if the Blu-Ray vs. HDTV contest is irrelevant and consumers skip that upgrade altogether in favor of some mix-and-match combo of all the following: VOD, XBox, iTunes, Apple TV, Netflix streaming, and Amazon Unbox downloads?

I just had a conversation with a pal about the dwindling newspaper economy. We are not alone in expecting to read content online for free. When anything we want to find is behind a firewall, we get pissed. Another pal of mine routinely illegally downloads all his films. He expects to watch his entertainment for free.

Obviously there will be ways, whether it's iTunes or Google ads or sponsorships and product placement, for companies to gain value from content. But in a recent conversation with a studio head, I was struck when he admitted that they had just renewed their HBO Pay-TV deal. That he considered any radical shift in the ways the studios collect their revenues to be far off. He wasn't worried, because he's sticking with the old-fashioned theater/DVD/VOD/Pay TV/TV model for as long as possible. By taking this course and delaying the pursuit of an alternative distribution paradigm (which they are keeping in their back pockets), the studios risk eventually getting stuck with a lot of content nobody wants to pay for.

Wired also has an update on the Netflix $1-million competition to invent a new movie recommendation algorithm 10 % better than its own Cinematch. The probable winner: a Brit psychologist.

Online Video: Ad Models Up for Grabs

In the online video age, everyone is trying to figure out the best way to advertise.

Yahoo: Semel Out as CEO; Yang Back In

Rafat Ali's paidContent is reporting that as many had suspected, Yahoo has moved Terry Semel out as CEO; Jerry Yang is taking over that role. So is AP.

CBS Abandons Video Strategy

On the one hand, I wonder when the studios will adopt a long tail strategy and put all their content on websites for audiences to find them. On the other, it drives me crazy when I can't just go to you Tube to find the clips I want to see, easily, effortlessly, and grab the code and put the clip on my blog if I want to. Otherwise you have to go hunting around on these cluttered web sites with lousy search engines and then the code isn't available (that's how you get the nice box) and even if it is it doesn't work. Comedy Central is one such site.

So CBS may be on the right track by abandoning the strategy of distributing their own videos on one site.