Gates memo warns of 'disruptive' changes

Ina Fried
ZDNet

Aiming to stir up the same kind of momentum as his Internet Tidal Wave memo of a decade earlier, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has penned a memo outlining the challenges Microsoft faces from a host of online competitors.

"This coming 'services wave' will be very disruptive," Gates said in an October. 30 e-mail to top Microsoft employees. "We have competitors who will seize on these approaches and challenge us."

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TV Networks Turn To New Media to Customize Ads

Frank AhrensWashington
The Washington Post

CBS is having a terrific autumn. As a result, you're going to see more advertising.
The network's "CSI" has been the top-rated show among all networks and all viewers so far this season, with "CSI: Miami" and "Without a Trace" occupying two of the other top five slots.

But these days, that's hardly enough.

Almost all of Viacom's CBS and UPN station Web sites are being revamped, the company said, to include a search technology from Kanoodle that displays sponsored advertising links along with news when viewers use the TV stations' Web sites.

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At Last, Phone Some Tunes to Yourself

David Pogue
The New York Times

YOU just know that certain technologies, once they become inexpensive and easy to use, will be earth-shattering hits: instant viewing of any movie ever made; nonpolluting cars; cellphones that don't drop calls.

Don't look now, but one longstanding member of the Someday Club has just become a reality, more or less: anytime, anywhere wireless downloading of favorite songs for instantaneous listening - no computer necessary.

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Toyota dumps 'Nip/Tuck'

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 11 (UPI)

Toyota has apparently bowed to pressure from the Parents Television Council and pulled its advertising from FX TV's "Nip/Tuck."

The PTC announced the decision on its Web site, calling the cable series about a pair of plastic surgeons "one of the most sexually explicit, profane, and violent television programs in the history of American television," E! Online reported Friday.

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Sidney Crosby goes global for Reebook

MEDIA RELEASE
Reebok International Ltd.

ADDING MULTIMEDIA Reebok Launches Hardhitting 'I Am What I Am' TV and Print Ad Starring Hockey Hero Sidney Crosby: Ads Will Debut Brand's New, Innovative Rbk 9K Pump Hockey Skate

CANTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 10, 2005--Reebok (NYSE:RBK - News) scores hockey star Sidney Crosby as the newest celebrity to be featured in the brand's "I Am What I Am" global advertising campaign. The :30 TV spot and print ad will feature Pittsburgh Penguins standout Crosby wearing Reebok's new Rbk 9K Pump Hockey Skate, which provides athletes with the ultimate in customization by self-inflating around the foot for a perfect fit and feel. Reebok's new "I Am What I Am" ad will trace Crosby's most poignant moments growing up as a young hockey player in Nova Scotia.

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India TV scoops are shortlived

Be it the story on the sex scandal in a temple

in Gujarat, or the Shakti Kapoor-Aman Verma-casting couch expose, or the latest scoop on the Govinda-underworld nexus, India TV has been successful in creating a separate identity for itself as a ‘sensational’ news channel.


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Tailored, ad-free TV gains ground

David Lieberman
USA TODAY

NEW YORK — CBS and NBC delivered another hammer blow to the traditional TV economic model on Monday by agreeing to let some Comcast and DirecTV customers pay 99 cents to watch certain hit shows on demand and ad-free.

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Dotcom boom and bust tops list of Internet watersheds

NEW YORK (AFP) - The breaking of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and this year's Live 8 concerts were voted among the most influential Internet moments of the past 10 years by organisers of the annual Webby Awards.

Oscars of the Internet -- chose the dotcom boom and bust as the most eventful episode over the past decade.

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NBC ready for crime-time with Sleuth channel

Andrew Wallenstein

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - NBC Universal is booking a new crime-themed cable channel with Time Warner Cable, the company said Wednesday.

Sleuth is launching January 1 in 5 million homes with a full docket of series and movies from the Universal library acquired in the company's 2004 merger, including "Miami Vice," "The A-Team" and "Scarface." Rumors had been swirling since the merger that NBC Universal was developing a channel in the crime or horror genres.


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Nielsen ratings clouded by dark screens

Nielsen's TV ratings system has taken a hit with South Florida's widespread electricity loss.

BY CHRISTINA HOAG
choag@herald.com
Posted on Wed, Nov. 02, 2005

Widespread power outages across South Florida have taken a huge bite out of the TV household sample that Nielsen Media Research uses to measure the popularity of television shows.

READ THE ARTICLE AT MIAMI.COM