HBO and Walmart the latest to create iPhone apps for promotion
There are a lot of applications available for the iPhone — over 15,000 in fact. Some are good, some are great, a lot are junk, and increasingly, a lot are being made by big brands to promote themselves. Two of the latest to fall into this category are the premium cable movie channel HBO and the world’s largest retailer, Walmart.
HBO’s application, called “HBO Snowman” is little more than a cute way to play clips from… Continue Reading
Online ‘Conchords’ gathers flock of over 250,000 views
The season two premiere of HBO oddball comedy series Flight of the Conchords has gotten over 250,000 views in the past two weeks on humor web site Funny or Die.
A partnership between HBO and the Funny or Die comedy site from Will Ferrell and Adam McKay (which HBO has a stake in) led to the early streaming of the episode, in order to drum up buzz. It’s a great way to generate more publicity for… Continue Reading
Flight of the Conchords season premiere lands early online
Flight of the Conchords, a series featuring a quirky musical duo from New Zealand, has just debuted on online video site FunnyorDie.com — a month before its season premiere airs on HBO.
Networks have been giving sneak peeks and releasing episodes early online to get viewers psyched for new seasons and new shows for a while now. However, this promotion is part of a bigger pattern of pumping up and priming audiences for a series in… Continue Reading
Lloyd! Whrrl adds you to Entourage’s entourage
As more location-based services come out, one definite problem I’ve been experiencing is a lack of membership. That is to say, most of them work great, but no one I know really uses them, making them fairly useless. Whrrl, the location-based social network has a new feature today that may up its adoption.
The service had teamed up with Deep Focus which handles the marketing for the cable television channel HBO to promote the hit show… Continue Reading
With investment from HBO, Funny or Die moves beyond online video
Hollywood creators may be increasingly interested in VC money, but they’re happy to accept old-media dollars, too. Take Funny or Die, the Sequoia-backed online video site started by actor Will Ferrell and director Adam McKay, which just sold an equity stake to HBO.
The size of the deal hasn’t been disclosed, but Variety reports that HBO’s stake is less than 10 percent. In exchange, HBO gets 10 half-hour programs from the Funny or Die team, which also… Continue Reading
Roundup: Icahn may go proxy on Yahoo, Craigslist countersues eBay, and more
Here’s the latest action:
Icahn considers his own proxy war for Yahoo — Billionaire investor Carl Icahn began buying massive amounts of Yahoo stock last week — up to 50 million shares — and now is thinking about using that influence. He is considering replacing some of Yahoo’s board members (not quite the full replacement Microsoft was considering) with those of his own choosing, according to CNBC. Such a move could potentially force Yahoo to sell to… Continue Reading