Ding Dong, go the wedding bells of Hollywood and Silicon Valley

June 27, 2006 | Matt Marshall

We are finally jumping into bed with each other in a furious way.

Warner Brothers said yesterday they had struck a deal with San Francisco company Guba.com, to distribute its new and vintage movies and TV shows via the online video site. It comes after Warner chose controversial San Francisco file-sharing company, BitTorrent, do help with the distribution. Then there’s YouTube‘s announcement today that NBC will use it to promote its fall TV lineup. This adds to all he other stuff going on, including Cisco’s aggressive chase after Hollywood content, signaled in May.

The Guba deal marks the first time a Web site not affiliated with Hollywood can offer both movies and TV shows. It is a victory for 33-year-old Tom McInerney, the Guba co-founder who rightly lashed out as when we dissed his company a few weeks ago (scroll down; we were way too quick off the mark). Now we know why he was running around Hollywood in a Porsche 911 and renting a Beverly Hills penthouse. Our Merc colleague John Boudreau has a good summary of the Guba deal in the Merc today, where McInerney says more deals are in the works. John also has an overview of the general Hollywood-tech dance.

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About the Author, Matt Marshall

Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.