Twitter is increasing its global appeal by partnering with Indian wireless communications company Bharti Airtel on an SMS deal. The partnership will allow Bharti Airtel's 110 million wireless users to send free text messages to Twitter. While texting Twitter won't be free, it does give the company access to millions of potential users. Quotes Biz Stone ""There are over one billion people with internet access on the planet but there are more than four billion people with mobile phones and Twitter can work on all of them because even the the simplest of these devices feature SMS."
National Amusements CEO Sumner Redstone is set to sell almost $1 billion in Viacom and CBS stock. The sale, through which Redstone will unload $600 million worth of Viacom stock and $345 million worth of CBS shares, will help National Amusement pay off its substantial debt, including $500 million in debt due at the end of October. The move comes almost a year after Redstone said he had "no intention of selling a single share of Viacom or CBS stock."
After months of debate and cost cutting, The New York Times Company announced that it will not sell The Boston Globe. The highest bid the Times received for the Globe, which it purchased in 1993 for $1.1 billion, was $35 million in cash. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger noted that the struggling paper "has significantly improved its financial footing" in the last few months, calling off plans for a sale.
Contrary to reports that Michael Jackson's new album would not be sold on iTunes, Sony said that This Is It will be available for purchase in the iTunes store. The announcement came after rumors swirled that Apple would not sell the album because the Jackson estate wanted to sell it only as an album of bundled tracks. Due to the fact that Apple refuses to sell only bundled albums, Sony and the Jackson estate must have reached an agreement that individual tracks will indeed be available on iTunes, the most popular music retailer in the US.
In the digital era, there has never been an easy way for non-professionals to license music for different projects. However, SirGroovy.com, a new web service, is changing that. SirGroovy.com offers a database of over 10,000 pre-cleared songs for your next film, TV show, video game or commercial. David Leibowitz, former exec VP-general counsel for the RIAA, is the chairman, so you know the licenses are legit.
Shelly Palmer is a consultant and the host of MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer a daily show featuring news you can use about technology, media & entertainment. He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV. Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. You can join the MediaBytes mailing list here. Shelly can be reached at shelly@palmer.net For information about Get Digital Classes, visit www.shellypalmer.com/seminars