Linked List: December 6, 2013

Friday, 6 December 2013

Disney Takes Over Rights to ‘Indiana Jones’ Franchise ★

Justin Kroll, reporting for Variety:

Under the arrangement, Disney gains distribution and marketing rights to future films, in addition to retaining its current ownership rights which it secured when it acquired Lucasfilm.

Paramount will continue to be responsible for distribution of the first four films in the franchise and will receive a financial participation on any future films that are produced and released.

Though Disney now owns the rights they have not officially announced that a fifth films is in the works.

Do they keep going with Harrison Ford as an older Indy, or reboot with a young actor, James Bond-style? (Casting off the top of my head: Ryan Gosling. My pal Dave Wiskus says Bradley Cooper.)

Claim Chowder: Windows Phone Edition ★

BGR, back in May 2011:

Pyramid’s Senior Analyst Stela Bokun explains that Windows Phone is poised to overtake Android’s massive market share much earlier than that — as soon as 2013, in fact. Beginning this year, Bokun sees Windows Phone popularity exploding even faster than Android adoption has since its introduction in 2008.

Anything could happen in the next three weeks, I suppose.

‘Everyone Laughed’ ★

Vincent Washington, senior business development manager at RIM from 2001-2011, in Businessweek’s “The Rise and Fall of BlackBerry: An Oral History”:

One thing we missed out on was that Justin Bieber wanted to rep BlackBerry. He said, “Give me $200,000 and 20 devices, and I’m your brand ambassador,” basically. And we pitched that to marketing: Here’s a Canadian kid, he grew up here, all the teeny-boppers will love that. They basically threw us out of the room. They said, “This kid is a fad. He’s not going to last.” I said at the meeting: “This kid might outlive RIM.” Everyone laughed.

The Information ★

Jessica Lessin (whose reporting I’ve linked to numerous times) left the Wall Street Journal earlier this year to start a new publication. It launched this week, with a staff of eight:

The Information, launching today, is our first step towards building a publication that operates differently. We’re a team of reporters and editors who have learned from the best in the business, and we want to challenge ourselves to write better articles that break new ground. Period.

To do that, we are focusing on writing for readers we think are underserved: professionals in technology and in industries being upended by it. These readers find plenty to read every day but they don’t consistently find news that is relevant to them and their business challenges. They don’t often find news that takes a stand supported by facts. We aim to do both.

So, instead of chasing the highest number of eyeballs, we will chase and deliver the most valuable news. We’ve set the bar high. To succeed, we need to write articles that deliver value worth paying for. That’s why we’re a subscription publication.

Subscriptions cost $399/year or $39/month. All articles are behind the paywall. That’s an intriguing business model. I think it will work. 2,500 subscribers gets them to $1M in annual revenue; 5,000 gets them to $2M. If you’re going to charge for subscriptions, charge a lot.

Update: A few readers have asked whether I subscribed. Good question. I did, for one month.

Twitter to Be Available on Mobile Phones Without Internet ★

Sruthi Ramakrishnan, reporting for Reuters:

Twitter Inc. is tying up with a Singapore-based startup to make its 140-character messaging service available to users in emerging markets who have entry-level mobile phones which cannot access the Internet.

U2opia Mobile, which has a similar tie-up with Facebook Inc, will launch its Twitter service in the first quarter of next year, Chief Executive and Co-founder Sumesh Menon told Reuters.

Seems like forever ago, but Twitter was originally conceived as an SMS service.

‘Apple’s Star Chamber’ ★

Scathing WSJ editorial (warning: WSJ editorial) regarding Judge Denise Cotes and Michael Bromwich, the monitor she appointed to oversee Apple’s compliance in the e-book price-fixing case.

Eric Schmidt Says Drones Should Be Banned From Private Use ★

Self-driving cars, though, those are OK.