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"The user is more important than the advertiser, more important than the developer, more important than anyone else. At the end of the day, it's the user who's going to drive the advertising dollars."

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The first original series to move from a mobile platform to linear broadcast is coming to Comedy Central. Launched as five minute shorts on Amp'd Mobile, Lil' Bush: Resident of the United States is an animated satire that puts President Bush and a few colleagues including Lil' Cheney and Lil' Condi back in the schoolyard in elementary school.  Comedy Central has ordered six episodes.

Slashphone.com - News Corporation and VeriSign Announce Joint Venture to Create Leading Global Mobile Entertainment Company

Excerpts:

"News Corporation and VeriSign announced a joint venture to form the world's largest provider of mobile entertainment. News Corp. will pay approximately $188 million for a controlling interest in VeriSign’s wholly-owned Jamba subsidiary and will combine it with Fox Mobile Entertainment assets.

The new company will merge the most technologically advanced platform in the category with market-leading mobile content production and delivery capabilities and will serve 30 territories with a potential reach of more than a billion mobile subscribers. The new company intends to retain the Jamster brand in the U.S. and the Jamba brand worldwide.

"This is an important step in News Corp.'s strategy of becoming the world’s leading digital media company," said Peter Chernin, News Corp. President and Chief Operating Officer. "We're the most powerful media company on the web with Fox Interactive Media, our aggressive digital content deals have given consumers access to News Corp. programming on every conceivable platform and we have already demonstrated innovation in this emerging space with the Mobisode and Mobizzo. 

Under the agreement, Jamba will soon release its first products and offerings as a new entity, following the close of the transaction, including:

• MySpace Mobile Store: In an alliance with MySpace, the largest and most popular social networking site with more than 74 million users worldwide, Jamba will be MySpace's global m-commerce partner. Jamba will build a unique m-commerce engine to enable MySpace users to download ringtones, graphics and animations from top music and media companies.


• The Simpsons Mobile: Coming soon, Jamba will exclusively offer mobile content from the popular FOX series, The Simpsons, through the industry’s first subscription package tied to exclusive content called the "Yellow Plan". Available to consumers for the first time, the "Yellow Plan" will include an array of uniquely designed Simpsons mobile content, such as wallpapers, screensavers, ringtones and video. 

The transaction is expected to be finalized by the end of 2006. Transaction is subject to the completion of definitive agreements as well as the receipt of obtaining all required regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of all other customary conditions."

Download Press Release [PDF]

Excerpts:

Beginning on Tuesday, March 21 in Las Vegas, the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) will host a technology booth at TelecomNEXT, featuring several companies who will display some of the latest online distribution platforms and filtering tools which could assist the telecommunications industry and play an important role in the emerging legitimate digital content distribution markets. This is the first time that the MPAA has had a presence at this event which is important in bringing business and technology of communications and entertainment together.

Representatives from Audible Magic, BitTorrent Inc., CacheLogic, Peer Impact, Red Swoosh and Thomson Content Security will be on hand to demonstrate methods their companies have developed to facilitate legal online movie distribution and to protect copyrights in a digital environment.