The stock of Netflix has dropped nearly in half and thousands of subscribers have jumped ship since the company that essentially put video stores out of business announced that it would have a price increase two months ago.

On Sunday night, CEO Reed Hastings posted a mea culpa blog post and video (above) that stated "I messed up," adding, "It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming, and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology."

Prices are returning to to what they were. Instead, the company’s DVD-by-mail service is going to be spun off and called Qwikster, which Hastings said wouldn't change the 12-year-old DVD service other than to create a distinct brand and website, Qwikster.com.

The Qwikster news comes as Facebook, where Hastings is a board member, is getting ready to announce a new media platform, according to the New York Times, which "will allow people to easily share their favorite music, television shows and movies, effectively making the basic profile page a primary entertainment hub."Continue reading...

Conde Nast's Social Sidekick got off to an iffy start this week when Business Insider dismissed it as a "non-starter."

"It's a nice little feature - one that will increase engagement a bit and allow advertisers some flexibility - but is it really changing anything? Nope."

Kicking the tires on the digital sidecar to Conde Nast's vast array of content, Gucci is the exclusive launch advertiser for Social Sidekick through the end of October.Continue reading...

Starbucks is suing a South Dakota communications company to protect three letters it holds dear: SDN.

The acronym for Starbucks Digital Network, which provides free web access and exclusive content to in-store users and via a smartphone app, is being challenged by broadband service provider South Dakota Network, which operates as SDN Communications, over rights to use the acronym trademark.Continue reading...

Meet Gayle Evans, an American Family Insurance agent in Maple Grove, Anytown, U.S.A. She's also the star of a digital series produced by NBCU Digital titled, In Gayle We Trust.

The character has been featured in two seasons of webisodes on NBC.com (final episodes will continue through this fall), and was introduced last year as part of NBC's ramped up branded entertainment push — an initiative that NBCU's new owners at Comcast recently killed off in lieu of producing webisodes tied to NBC's current on-air programming, not brands' characters and storylines.Continue reading...

Hollywood's wagons are circling against content theft with a new coalition, Creative America, to fight piracy and protect creative works and jobs.

The entertainment industry coalition states “that halting the looting of America’s creative works and protecting jobs must be a national priority."

Statistics cited on the group's homepage:

• Websites trafficking in stolen film and TV content get nearly 150 million visits every day, more than 50 billion visits per year. 
• Content theft isn’t just about movies. TV shows are illegally streamed and downloaded millions of times each week.  
• Content theft threatens over 2 million jobs supported by the film and televisio n industry in all 50 states and D.C. 
• The vast majority of workers in film and TV are middle class, earning $55K a year on average. These are the people hurt by content theft.  
• Content theft has already cost 140,000 U.S. jobs, along with $5 billion in wages and revenues for residuals and pensions. 

The founding members — including NBC Universal, SAG, Sony Pictures Entertainment, AFTRA, CBS, the DGA, IATSE, Twentieth Century Fox, Viacom, Disney and Warner Bros. — call themselves a “grassroots organization” supporting 2 million Americans whose jobs are in creative fields.Continue reading...

The 1950’s eat-at-home-TV-dinner is being flipped, as a dining room TV network is coming soon to your local Taco Bell.

The quick-serve restaurant has signed a deal to install an in-store television network and free Wi-Fi at its 5,600 locations throughout the US by 2015.

Forget CNN or Fox News nattering away in the background — the programming will include interactive content that includes games, polls, iTunes songs, as well as opt-in text messaging and social marketing campaigns.

The goal of the agreement between Taco Bell and IndoorDIRECT's Restaurant Entertainment Network is to convert Taco Bell’s 36.8 million weekly drive-through customers to in-restaurant diners, and reach an estimated total of 48 million customers.

"Our consumers come to us for great tasting tacos and burritos, and now we're enriching their experience with the addition of indoorDIRECT's Restaurant Entertainment Network," stated Taco Bell CMO David Ovens.Continue reading...

Two announcements from AOL’s Patch network of community news and blogs shows how the platform is expanding its reach in hyperlocal content and services.

First, a partnership with American Express to simplify digital payments and local deals redemption via Serve, AmEx’s next-generation, open payments platform.

By adding Serve to AOL's Patch Deals platform, consumers and merchants both benefit.Continue reading...

Perpetually in search of brand innovation since 1883, when it introduced its first major brand, Ivory Soap, Procter & Gamble’s corporate commitment to innovating is articulated in the June issue of Harvard Business Review, where P&G is dubbed the "new growth factory."

The HBR article, "How P&G Tripled Its Innovation Success Rate" (co-authored by P&G CTO Bruce Brown and Innosight managing director Scott Anthony) looks at how digital platforms have filled the branded content hole created by the collapse of TV soap operas, a branding medium that P&G helped invent with Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers.Continue reading...