Delivering on a promise made by co-owner Justin Timberlake to “bring sexy back to Myspace,” Fox Digital Entertainment and Myspace have announced Let's Big Happy, a seven-episode web series starring Andrew W.K. that debuts on March 28th.

Taco Bell is sponsoring the new web series, which features bands from the chain's Feed the Beat music program which supplies bands with free food while on tour, including performances by Chiddy Bang, We Are Scientists, Math the Band, Generationals, and the Gay Blades.

"The branded entertainment space has evolved over the last few years by doing what is typically labeled as 'organic' integration all the way up to a sponsor wrapping themselves around a program that never mentions their product,” commented Fox Digital Entertainment SVP Matt Glotzer to Billboard.Continue reading...

Just when you think the final story has been written about Netflix — the story begins again.

The high-flying video subscription service, largely credited with driving Blockbuster into bankruptcy, has had business issues of its own in the past year. Now it's looking to a new partner — cable operators — who traditionally view streaming in general, and Netflix in particular, as the enemy.Continue reading...

On January 5th Yahoo! surprised Silicon Alley and Wall Street by PayPal president Scott Thompson as its new CEO. Today, the website's co-founder (and "Chief Yahoo!") Jerry Yang resigned from the company. Yang, who co-founded the search portal in 1995 with David Filo, immediately no longer serves on its Board of Directors or holds any other positions with the company, and also resigned from the Boards of Yahoo Japan Corporation and China's Alibaba Group Holding Limited.

In a letter to the Yahoo! Board Chairman Roy Bostock, Yang — who taped the video above for his alma mater, Stanford University, two months ago — wrote, 

“My time at Yahoo!, from its founding to the present, has encompassed some of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my life. However, the time has come for me to pursue other interests outside of Yahoo! As I leave the company I co-founded nearly 17 years ago, I am enthusiastic about the appointment of Scott Thompson as Chief Executive Officer and his ability, along with the entire Yahoo! leadership team, to guide Yahoo! into an exciting and successful future.”Continue reading...

Yahoo! demonstrates its dynamic new ad format for the tablet, Living Ads by Yahoo!, in a campaign with Toyota to bring the Prius to life "like no other ad experience."

In a bid to enhance the rollout out of Yahoo! Livestand to the iPad earlier this month, Alex Linde, Yahoo’s director of mobile and tablet advertising, tells Adweek that the living ads were created in the same vein as aspirational magazine glossies but also try to borrow from the best of television. 

“What TV does best is the branding aspect, it engages me, it gets me aware. But then what online does well is . . . it lets me build a preference and drive some action,” Linde said. “If I was to take an interactive TV ad and put it into a magazine, that would be a phenomenal advertiser experience.”

Amazon is ready to lose a whole lot of dough — potentially, millions of dollars — on its Prime loyalty service in order to beat the likes of Apple and Walmart in the same marketplace, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The short-term loss for long-gain strategy appears to be the plan, as the Journal reports Amazon will be adding more titles and features to the service that costs $79 annually to the consumer.

As it battles Apples iTunes and app stores, Prime now offers on-demand movies and a lending library for Kindle owners in addition to the shipping discounts it started with, the Journal notes.Continue reading...

You don’t think Amazon is dominant enough in the online-retail world? Well, neither did they, so they are getting into the online grocery-delivery service.

Soap.com, an online retailer of health, cleaning and beauty products that happens to be owned by Amazon's Quidsi division, is getting into the grocery business.

Soap.com is adding “more than 10,000 nonperishable food items — including coffee and tea, cereal and pasta — for purchase on its website,” AP notes. Offering free shipping for orders over $39, all deliveries happen within one or two days of order.

The AP points out that Soap.com is entering an already growing field with Fresh Direct and Peapod already doing battle along with such traditional grocers as Safeway that provide online-ordering opportunities, while “Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced in April that it would test home grocery delivery in San Jose, Calif., with its ‘Walmart To Go’ business.”

As part of its branded channel original content push announced late last month, Google has signed a major player — Disney.

Disney Mobile is developing original Web series aimed at children for YouTube. The first is based on Where's My Water?, Disney's popular eco-friendly iPhone and iPad app.

"It's imperative to go where our audience is," James A. Pitaro, co-president of Disney Interactive, told the New York Times. With Disney.com not ready to relaunch until next year, the goal, he added, is to "bring Disney’s legacy of storytelling to a new generation of families and Disney enthusiasts on the platforms they prefer."

"It's an acknowledgment that we want to work with the best brands and, yes, we expect this partnership to attract new advertisers," added Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s global head for content partnerships.

Under the terms of the deal, Disney will produce eight original Web series to run on YouTube at any given time.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong was comparatively upbeat on this week's Q3 earnings call, citing the web giant's February acquisition of The Huffington Post, the growth of the Patch network of hyperlocal community websites and increased mobile content as key drivers. As of September 30, 2011, AOL had $444.1 million of cash.

With a third quarter net loss of $2.6 million, or 2 cents a share on revenue of $531.7 million, down 6% from a year ago, ad revenue is up 8% from 2010 to $317.7 million. "Amazingly," Business Insider commented, some 3.5 million AOL users still access the brand via dial-up. On paper, CNN Money observed, AOL's financials may look "dismal," but its "quarterly revenue declines were the lowest in 5 years (while) search ad sales fell by the smallest amount in 2 years."

Since July’s changes in AOL’s ad operations, which saw Jeff Levick ousted (to land at Spotify as chief ad officer) and Ned Brody upped to the top spot, Armstrong said they’ve been tightening their focus and offering to marketers and advertisers.Continue reading...