It’s been a busy summer for us at IGA Worldwide announcing new funding, Simbin, a measurement deal with Interpret, and now, an exclusive arrangement with Codemasters for leading titles across multiple platforms including the next generation of consoles.

More info here.

Believe it or not, the cover of todays issue of the Wall Street Journal featured a front and center article about Tom Taylor, a video game instructor who teaches folks of all ages how to improve their skills at either Halo 2 or Super Smash Brothers Melee.

According to the article, the 27 year old runs a company called Gaming-Lessons.com, where gamers can book lessons with Tom for about $65/hr. Tom teaches his students over VOIP and thru email and even with one lesson, students really learn a great deal.

I think this is fantastic: first off, it made the front cover of the Wall Street Journal. Secondly, gaming is big. It’s about time it gets the media attention it deserves. There are many businesses sprouting around video games as the roots of the industry are deeply planted. Just look at the Global Gaming League; the company is creating television contact around video games as well, as, managing a highly successful gaming league and website. Many celebrities have joined up to take part in their endeavor into the Hip Hop Gaming League (HHGL) including their commissioner, Snoop Dog.

There are many other companies surrounding this space and complimenting it- but I’m just really impressed with the attention that this video game instructor received. Time to go play….

Tags:Â Gaming, video games, Halo 2

Theodora Stites has written a fantastic article labeled, Someone To Watch Over Me (on a Google Map) which touches upon a half dozen social networking companies who directly impact her life every day. Sites that are realized in the article are:

• Myspace
• Friendster
• Dodgeball - good to see the site/service appear
• Facebook
• Match.com
• Nerve * not really part of the list
• Plazes
• Fark
• Geocaching

The most interesting part of the article focuses on why Theodora has multiple social networks. She explains it well, and honestly, it’s fascinating:

WHY, you ask, do I have to be a part of so many online communities? Isn’t it hard to keep track? I need to belong to all of them because each one enables me to connect to people with different levels of social intimacy.

Don’t know you but think I may want you to be part of my network? I’ll contact you through Match.com or Nerve. Just met? I’ll look you up on MySpace. Known each other for a while, but haven’t been in touch recently? Friendster message. Friends with my friends and want to get to know you better? Dodgeball or MySpace. Good friends and want to connect more often? Dodgeball. Really good friends? Instant Message.

Anyone involved in the social media space or investment realm should take a look at this article. It may be a bit slapstick or informal, but it does lay out some great thoughts into the social networking realm.

Tags:Â social networking, myspace, friendster, fark, dodgeball, facebook, and NY Times

I’m a huge proponent of virtual worlds and all of the different opportunities that lie within each world.  From BusinessWeek to Advertising Age and every magazine/newspaper in between, we’re seeing some great integrations into the virtual world such as the BBC and MLB.  However, many people are not aware of the intricacies of planning an event or understanding how the "grid" system works within a virtual world, namely Linden Labs’ Second Life.

The grid is the platform that Second Life runs on.  It’s a combination of computing power, storage and software that allows Second Life to run and be usable by the hundreds of thousands of inhabitants.  Currently, there Second Life uses nearly 1,000 dual processor/dual- core systems and is growing at about 7% per month in terms of computing power.

In an article by Tom Gibbs, he explains the grid system in a bit more depth and how it relates to virtual worlds.  This is essential to understand if you want to learn how these worlds grow and what holds them back.

Tags: grid, Second Life, Linden Lab, computing

Please note that this is more of an essay than a short blog post. This was a large brain dump that may not be as cohesive as a polished essay, but I’d love to get your feedback, especially if you work for a major touring company or record label (I read the web logs, I know you read!).

Music is an experience. On our saddest days, we listen to an album that will cheer us up or one that shares the mood; whereas on our happiest days, we celebrate with our favorite album. The reason we listen to these songs/albums is that they relate to past experiences or provide future insight that satisfies us. I remember that I experienced an ad-hoc concert at Universal Studios in 1996 by a little known piano player named Lao Tizer… he blew me and the sparse crowd away and since then, when I’m in a certain type of mood, I listen to his new age slash contemporary jazz music and live thru the music…. As one big experience.

One band who I’m fortunate to have experienced many concerts of is the Dave Matthews Band. By today’s standards, they’re historical. They were established by a bartender transplanted to the USA from South Africa in 1991. For the past 15 years, they have been popping out chart topping hits and platinum selling albums – but I’d argue that that isn’t why they should be remembered…

Concerts are extremely lucrative to record labels. Traditionally, concerts were left untouched by the music industry as artists made the bulk of their revenue from album sales. Now that we are fortunate to have digital distribution en mass (thanks Shawn!), album sales have become microchunked: consumers have the ability to purchase only what they want from a particular album and receive it in real time from the half dozen or so major digital outlets including iTunes and Rhapsody in a hyperefficient payment/distribution model.

Over the past 5 years, concerts have been a significant revenue generator for touring artists and their respective labels. Bands can generate substantial revenue from tours that they could possibly even bypass the major labels… look at the former band, Dispatch, or Of A Revolution (OAR) though currently now signed. These bands supported themselves, grew a fan base, and toured nationally by selling records out of the hoods of their vans (literally… I was there).

Concerts are more than just listening to music. They are synonymous for an ‘experience.’ Artists who can create experiences will have fruitful careers. If I were to ask you who are the top 3 touring bands with huge followings, you’d probably say The Grateful Dead, Phish, and the Dave Matthews Band. Why? Each fanbase has a nickname: deadheads, phish(ers), and dancing nancies. Within each of these fanbases, there is a culture that radiated originally from the band, highly influenced by the fans, and now, fans influencing the band in a cyclical ecosystem.

I was fortunate to get away from the office a few weekends ago and head up to my annual Dave Matthews Band experience in Saratoga Springs, NY. Some of you know that I went to undergraduate at Skidmore College in Saratoga and spent many-a-night at SPAC under the stars listening to great music. Usually when going to the DMB shows, I’m with a group of people who have been to dozens of shows as well… this time was different, I was with someone who had never been to a DMB concert before nor had they heard their lengthy catalog of music any more than the latest pop-star on MTV.

As a marketer, I had to “sell� the show to my colleague. I thought this would be easy as I would name the songs that were hits – and my colleague would instantly be psyched about the show… but contrary to my thoughts, it didn’t work out that way. Maneuvering through many marketing techniques, I realized that playing to emotions would be extremely powerful…, more powerful than a lot of other techniques. It was then where I briefed my colleague about the crowd, the lights, the amphitheatre, the vibe, etc. Instantly, my colleague was excited.

2 full set-lists and 48 hours later, my colleague had been through their first DMB show(s) and I had just finished a major milestone for me… 75!  I could listen to Dancing Nancies, Say Goodbye, Hunger for the Great Light or Watchtower all day, but the experience of the crowd is what draws me to the shows. This was exactly what my colleague commented on… the lights, the crowd participation, the dancing, the vibe, and the enthusiasm displayed by staff to the band, to the security to the crowd was so powerful that it captured the thousands of people at the sold out 2 night stint at SPAC.

If I was to do the math, I probably have spent well over $20,000 traveling all across the world to see the Dave Matthews Band. I’m not the only “idiot� who does this as one family member refers to me about my DMB addiction. There are thousands of us who are stimulated by the experience that the band and crowd create.

An experience is a 2-way communication. The band must entertain, and the crowd must react. The reaction is the variable for the most part and you’ll learn this over many trips to significant amounts of venues. Hershey Park crowds are much different than Madison Square Garden… the songs they like, their demographic profile, etc, all play into this variable. However, this variable provides the major portion of the 2-way communication for this “experience.�

Bands like the Dave Matthews Band will succeed ultimately because they can not only play to the fan base (and that in itself is hard), but they can be dynamic and react and collaborate with the crowd. Lots of bands think they get on stage and compete with the crowd… collaborate with them. The crowd will make or break the show… not one broken string on the guitar, or an amazing riff or drum solo. The more you can get the crowd on your side and have them work with you to create the experience, the richer and voluptuous the show will become… thus creating a culture for your fanbase that will be enriched by each new member.

This experience which has historically been limited to the XX,XXX amounts of fans that come out each night to the concert can be transcended. Why not capture this energy? Many different bands have subscribed to inefficient concert recording services that record in real-time and sell the concert directly after to fans. This is good…. Steps beyond where we were 10 years ago. However, why not make the concert live? Your answer would be production costs. Yes, it is expensive, possibly prohibitively expensive, but with new forms of recording and the broadband penetration across the world, a concert of 5000 people is going to be considered peanuts in a few years. A concert of tens of thousands of people in various viewing platforms is going to be regular…and not just sitting back and watching on their screens solitarily, but contributing and collaborating pre/post/during the show is going to be important…why? Because concerts are experiences.

The Internet has been great for bringing people together. However, it’s been harmful because it allows people to search and surf alone. An experience is a two way relationship – if we’re going to be watching something online, especially a concert, lets watch with other people and lets communicate.

I think we’re going to see a renaissance in the web soon. I was really excited when Kevin Wall kick-started Network Live and even offered to fly out to Beverly Hills on my expense to discuss ideas and opportunities with him and his senior management team. Yet, I am still left quite unsatisfied with what anyone has done in terms of collaboration with the music world no matter what part of the industry they exist within. Lets bridge online and offline together and create that social platform that doesn’t yet exist and then more artists can become like the Dave Matthews Band and create amazing experiences for their fans. After all, I’d argue it’s not the music… it’s the experience that we latch onto.

My current startup, IGA Worldwide Inc., has raised another $5m from Intel Capital and our existing investors, Easton Capital, Morgenthaler Ventures and DN Capital. This additional capital brings us to $17m.

The money will be used to grow IGA’s relationships with publishers and extend global operations to support customers in North America, Europe and Asia. Justin Townsend (CEO) has stated that the company is in discussions with big publishers and is closing deals for advertisements in games set to ship at the end of the year and during 2007.

A lengthier writeup appears on RedHerring.com

Even if we’re not involved in television advertising, it impacts our business and lives every day.  If you’re in the digital branding sector of the media business, you’re probably trying to court the advertising dollars budgeted for television.  Well, those dollars are shrinking according to Advertising Age and other reports that are measuring the spend at the upfronts froma few weeks back.

• ABC generated $3+ billion from prime-time and other dayparts
• CBS generated $2.4 billion
• NBC generated $1.9 billion
• Fox generated $1.8 billion
• CW generated $650 million

Of note:

• AOL confirmed that is has pulled its upfront buys and is looking to sell its commitments for the 3rd quarter (July/August)
• Johnson & Johnson will start their negotiations in August
• Coca-Cola Co. did not make brandcast network upfront commitments
• Asking prices of CPMs were 3-4% higher than last year, however, networks struck deals that were between 2-3% higher.

For the full article: http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=110330

Investment banking is hot, just look at all the current deals occuring in the media/technology space. BusinessWeek has released the rankings of the top Investment Banking groups and Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan top the list according to banking revenue.Â

TOP PLAYERS. So who is at
the top of the game? Measured in terms of banking revenue, the top
three players remain Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase (JPM). UBS (UBS), Merrill Lynch (MER), and Citigroup (C)
follow, although Citigroup and UBS switched rankings: Citi dropped from
No. 3 to No. 6, UBS moved up from No. 6 to No. 3 while Merrill held
steady at No. 5. They were followed by Lehman Bros. (LEH), which moved from No. 8 to 7, and by Lazard (LAZ), which broke into the top 10 at No. 8. Credit Suisse (CSR) came in at No. 9, down from seventh place, and Deutsche Bank (DB) came in at No. 10, down from 9. Rothschild, a powerhouse in Europe, dropped out of the top 10 altogether.