MIT Professor Michael Hawley [Slashdot]

Marc's bit......

I go way back with this dude - like 20 years.

Miramax (owned by Disney) acquired the rights to The Lord of the Rings in 1996 but backed out of the deal in 1998 when Peter Jackson presented his budget. New Line Cinema (owned by Time Warner) stepped in and, under producer Barrie Osborne, stepped up to the plate. The three installments cost a toal of $270M to produce, and that's before marketing costs were added, not to mention the vaseline budget for the cameras filming Liv Tyler.

So, here's a toast to the money guys who said Yes to a director whose pitch must have gone something like this:

I'd like to film one of the most beloved and jealously protected literary properties in history.

I'd like to turn it into a sword-and-dwarves epic that will run somewhere between 9 and 11 hours.

I plan on shooting the largest, most complex battle scenes in history. And you can trust me based on my work in Heavenly Creatures.

We'll have to invent the most convincing CGI effects ever. In fact, the pivotal character will be made entirely of pixels. And you can trust me to bring true humanity to the art of digital acting based on my breakthrough work in Meet the Feebles.

A work of this scale will require marshalling 25,000 people over the course of several years. And I think I proved my ability to do so with Valley of the Stereos.

All hail Peter Jackson! But thanks, for once, to the money people who took the leap with him.

[Cross-posted at BlogCritics.org]  [Joho the Blog]

Is the Web’s ‘Nuclear Winter’ over? And is the warmth of all of the emerging interest in Social Networking Services helping to melt the ice? BusinessWeek’s Timothy Mullaney posits that we might be in a thaw, in an article today about Barry Diller’s [CEO of InterActiveCorp] acquisition of ZeroDegrees — Diller’s Latest Little Bet on the Net — [some other InterActiveCorp companies — Expedia, Hotels.com, Home Shopping Network, Ticketmaster, Evite, Match.com, uDate, Citysearch, LendingTree, and Hotwire.com.]

Diller could make other forays into the social-networking area, says Dan Marriott, an IAC senior vice-president and head of the new-business unit. He says IAC is looking at other dating and social-connection sites, and might make an acquisition if the business can be tied to a classified advertising model, as San Francisco-based Tribe Networks is attempting. “The classified-ad approach Tribe has identified is a valid approach,” said Marriott. “There will be a market there. But we felt the business side is the right place to start.”

[The Social Software Weblog]

February 29, 2004

According to a PR Newswire this morning Nielsen NetRatings confirms “Myspace.com‘s market leadership in Social Networking category”:

LOS ANGELES, March 1 /PRNewswire/ — MySpace.com, formally launched just over one month ago, today announces it is the number one ranked social networking site in terms of page views, according to Nielsen NetRatings, the leading online measurement tool.

“The latest Nielsen statistics validate what our users have been telling us for months,” said Chris DeWolfe, co-founder and President of MySpace.com. “By allowing our users to dictate the features they want, we’ve been able to develop an offering that keeps them coming back.”

MySpace.com has garnered an ardent and loyal fan base very quickly thanks to the technological superiority of its offering. MySpace.com is the only site of its kind to integrate blogs, instant messaging, classified listings, voting, groups, user forums, music and other user-created content. MySpace.com has also taken an active role in sponsoring music shows, parties and other events for its online users to socialize offline.

“To become the leader in the social networking space in just five months is an accomplishment we’re thrilled about, but we see it as only the beginning,” commented Tom Anderson, co-founder of MySpace.com. In addition to its technological advantages, MySpace.com allows a level of flexibility that is unmatched in the online social networking world. Users are allowed to create personalized web page profiles, which they can then use to link up and communicate with others of similar hobbies and interests. As the site is entirely advertiser-supported, use of the site is free.

[The Social Software Weblog]

This exposes what we've all known all along - that nobody goes to Friendster anymore.  And that it's lack of funtionality and features - makes it a joke.

Now I'm not sure if its MySpace's features, or people themselves - but they sure look like they're having fun over there.