NBC offers early
'Office' preview on MySpace
If you just can't wait for the
NBC remake of "The Office," good news. The network will stream
the second episode of the British remake on the MySpace.com site a week
before the pilot airs on TV. The network is hoping influencers, upscale
audience members who will recommend the show to friends, will tune in for
the show, scheduled for 8 p.m. tonight. As part of the launch, NBC is
using a variety of marketing tactics. The network has mailed out 800 DVD
screeners featuring an episode of "The Office" to ad agency
creative directors and corporate CEOs under the age of 40. The morning
after the pilot airs on March 24, actors wearing business attire will
stand outside office buildings in seven major cities wearing sandwich
boards that read "My Boss Sucks" on one side, and "The
Office -- Tuesdays at 9:30 on NBC" on the other side.
EC lets Microsoft and Time Warner off the hook
Microsoft has one less European
Commission anti-trust case to worry about. Yesterday the EC said it would
abandon its investigation into Microsoft and Time Warner’s joint deal
for U.S. anti-piracy software developer ContentGuard. The EC eased off its
stance after Thomson, the French electronics company, joined the deal with
a one-third stake. That assured that no one company will have total
command over ContentGuard, and that means that European Union merger rules
aren’t in effect. All three companies will appoint a pair of executives
to the board. It’s not Microsoft’s first battle with the EC. Last year
the EC fined Microsoft a record $610 million for violating anti-trust laws
and ordered the company to get rid of several features on its Windows
media player on the Windows operating system.
Man gets jail sentence for MSN TV virus crusade
David Jeansonne of Louisiana was sentenced to six
months in jail and six moths of home detention and ordered to pay a
$27,100 fine for sending out Trojan virus-laden e-mails to MSN TV
subscribers. MSN TV is a Microsoft service that allows subscribers to
connect to the internet using their television sets. The incident took
place in 2002, when MSN TV was called WebTV. Jeansonne’s emails
contained attachments that, if downloaded, caused customers to
unintentionally dial 911. About 20 people received the email, and 10 were
contacted by police when the emergency calls were received. The case was
investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by the Computer Hacking and
Intellectual Property Unit of the United States Attorney's Office.
Coming
soon in England, paid content via cell
Pre-paid cell phones will soon be more than a means
of chatting on the go in England. They'll offer a way to buy things on the
go. The European commission has eased restrictions on the regulation of
electronic cash or e-money in the UK. One mobile phone company, Vodafone,
has notified its major content partners that the change will enable
payments using a mobile phone for services such as online music downloads,
tickets and films delivered to an email address. Three years ago, the
European Union implemented its electronic money directive, but until now
the rules limited what people could buy. More than 50 million people use
mobile phones in the UK.
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