Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Amy's New Wine HOUSE...............

LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By


VINCENT VAN GOGH:


People are often unable to do anything, imprisoned as they are in I dont know what kind of terrible, terrible, oh such terrible cage.
Do you know what makes the prison disappear?
Every deep, genuine affection.
(1880)


LBN LYRICS OF LIFE By
MARVIN GAYE:


We' re all sensitive people with so much to give
Understand me sugar
Since we got to be, lets live,
I love you
Theres nothin wrong with me lovin, you, baby no no
And givin yourself to me can never be wrong
If the love is true, oh baby ooh.

AMY WINEHOUSE'S BOOB JOB:

Singer Debuts Her New Breasts:


Amy Winehouse is back in London after months in St. Lucia, a drug addiction and a divorce from husband Blake, and she's showing off her new breasts.
Earlier this month Winehouse's dad Mitch complimented the work and said that Amy is, "Fantastic, fantastic.
Her boobs are great as well."
He then smiled and said, "I shouldn't have said that should I?
She looks absolutely fantastic."
Sunday night Winehouse attended the 2009 Q Awards in a low-cut red dress.


LBN-HOLLYWOOD INSIDER:


***Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson will topline a Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's drama "A View From the Bridge," bowing at the Cort Theater later this season.
Johansson, who recently wrapped production on the film "Iron Man 2," makes her Rialto debut in the role.

***Jim Wiatt,


departed from the William Morris chairmanship and banished to that dark place where former Hollywood power brokers go, has joined the board of AOL.


***It's not a pretty picture out there for women looking to break into filmmaking, a new study from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film contends.
While prospects for women in the independent film world are rosier than for studio films, the number of females employed in key behind-the-scenes roles in both low- and high-budget movies remains piddling.


***Hollywood is puzzling, The New York Times says, over just what the next film from "Paranormal Activity" director Oren Peli is really worth.
CAA and IM Global are said to be scrambling to sell US rights to Peli's next movie, "Area 51," before the week is out.
At least six companies, including several major studios, have expressed interest.

LBN-MUSIC INSIDER:


***New author Robert Hilburn got a pretty nice shout-out for "Corn Flakes with John Lennon And Other Tales from a Rock 'n' Roll Life" at last night's U2 show at the Rose Bowl.


Bono announced that Hilburn was in the house, congratulated him on turning 70, and heaped good words on the book.


***Bruce Springsteen canceled a concert in Kansas City tonight after his cousin, Lenny Sullivan, was found dead in his hotel room -- a source close to the band.


Springsteen announced the death on his official website, saying it was a "death in the family."


***Eric Clapton has bowed out of this week's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th birthday festivities for health reasons.


The guitar great's official Web site says Clapton will undergo a minor medical procedure for gall stones and won't be able to perform as scheduled at one of the two Rock Hall anniversary concerts in New York.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Malaysia BOND Girl Michelle Yeoh.................


LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY By VIRGINIA WOOLF:


Life for both sexes and I looked at them, shouldering their way along the pavement is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle.
It calls for gigantic courage and strength.
More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion as we are, it calls for confidence in oneself.
Without self-confidence we are as babes in the cradle. (1929)


LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:.....Adam Lambert Goes Hetero.....


DID YOU KNOW:
*** There have been seven American Bond Girls, four English , three French, two Swedish and one each from Japan,



Malaysia, Switzerland , Italy, and Poland.
***Roger Moore was the oldest Bond actor at 58.

***10% of all the fish caught in the world are sold in Japan. ***Jellyfish as a species are actually older than dinosaurs and sharks.

***Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia make combined.


LBN-HISTORY:
On Oct. 21, 1879, Thomas Edison invented a workable electric light at his laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J.


Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Google CEO Schmidt: We paid $1 billion premium for YouTube........

October 6, 2009 4:00 AM PDT

Schmidt: We paid $1 billion premium for YouTube

by Greg Sandoval


Since 2006, many observers have scratched their head over what prompted Google to


pay $1.65 billion for the video site YouTube.


We're now a little closer to the answer.


Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in May, "I believe YouTube was worth somewhere around $600 million to $700 million."

The blockbuster acquisition for the 18-month-old start-up played a large role in sending valuations in the tech sector skyrocketing.

Although YouTube made little revenue, the all-stock transaction gave Google control of a company many believed would change the face of mass entertainment.

It also led to criticism from skeptics who thought that Google would never get its money back.


Google has revealed little about how it decided to pay $1.65 billion but CEO Eric Schmidt said under oath last spring that he was willing to pay a premium--a big one--for YouTube.

Leading up to the acquisition, Schmidt told Google's board of directors that his estimate of YouTube's worth was somewhere between $600 million and $700 million, according to court records reviewed by CNET.


A Google representative declined to comment about Schmidt's valuation.


Schmidt had his reasons for asking his board to OK an offer of $1 billion more than what he thought the site was worth.

The CEO made the comments during a deposition he gave in May as part of the copyright lawsuit Viacom filed against Google and YouTube in 2007.

In short, he believed that Google had to offer that much, or competitors, presumably Microsoft or Yahoo, would walk away with the increasingly popular video site.


"This is a company with very little revenue," Schmidt said while being questioned by Stuart Jay Baskin, a Viacom attorney.

"(YouTube was) growing quickly with user adoption, growing much faster than Google Video, which was the product that Google had.

And they had indicated to us that they would be sold, and we believed that there would be a competing offer--because of who Google was--paying much more than they were worth...

We ultimately concluded that $1.65 billion included a premium for moving quickly and making sure that we could participate in the user success in YouTube."


"In the deal dynamics, the price, remember, is not set by my judgment or by financial model or discounted cash flow.

It's set by what people are willing to pay."


--Eric Schmidt


Three years later, that user success continues:

YouTube has grown from 12 million unique users (in May 2006) to more than 100 million users just in the United States.

Every minute, more than 10 hours of video is uploaded to the site.

But Google is also fighting a $1 billion copyright lawsuit with entertainment giant Viacom, which claims that YouTube encouraged users to violate its copyright.

On top of that, the company is still trying to figure out how to turn its prize acquisition into a profitable business.


YouTube managers have toiled to find the right way to generate revenue, experimenting with a wide range of advertising methods and models--everything from prerolls to overlays.

Perhaps most importantly, managers changed their approach to copyright owners.


Whereas Hollywood executives once called YouTube a "rogue company," the video site can now boast numerous partnerships with top entertainment companies, including as Walt Disney, CBS (publisher of CNET News), Sony Pictures, and Metro Goldwyn-Mayer.

YouTube also has deals with all four major music labels.

And YouTube's finances may finally be turning the corner:

company representatives have hinted in the past several months that it's on the road to becoming the kind of revenue generator that Google always envisioned.


Whether Google paid too much for YouTube then is a sort of barroom debate among media analysts, not unlike arguing whether the New York Yankees overpaid on free-agent ballplayers in the off-season.

James McQuivey, a digital-media analyst at Forrester Research, said that if he were in Schmidt's shoes, he would have made the same deal.


"It actually becomes worth the additional value because Google can tie all of its advertising expertise and search traffic into YouTube," McQuivey said.

"It's not like it's going to pay back that $1.6 billion any time soon, but what it does is, it ensures that these millions and millions of viewers are coming to a Google-owned site rather than someone's else's site...

As a loss leader goes, if it never makes its money back, its still going to be worth it."


McQuivey acknowledged that those focusing only on hard business numbers are probably not going to agree with him.

Count Josh Martin among them.

Martin, a research analyst, was an early skeptic of YouTube's profit potential, arguing on behalf of Yankee Group Research that Google overpaid.


"I don't think Schmidt is wrong in assuming that someone would have overpaid for YouTube.

If Google was willing to overpay for it, then someone else would have too.

But it was a bad business decision for Google."


--Josh Martin, research analyst and early YouTube critic


"I don't think Schmidt is wrong in assuming that someone would have overpaid for YouTube," Martin said.

"If Google was willing to overpay for it, then someone else would have too.

But it was a bad business decision for Google.

We said it at the time, and three years later, we have been proven right."


Martin said that when Google priced YouTube, it should have deducted heavily for the legal liabilities, as well as for the company's ability to draw an audience, if it couldn't offer pirated content.


"You go back to the reason why YouTube was popular, and it was because of (the 'Saturday Night Live' skit) Lazy Sunday," Martin said.

"That is what put YouTube on the map.

So it was popular because it had access to content that it shouldn't have had and that you couldn't get elsewhere because no one else was willing to put it up illegally...

Clearly, (Google's leaders) needed to understand what was driving momentum behind YouTube."


The following is an edited excerpt of Schmidt's deposition:


Stuart Jay Baskin, a Viacom attorney: And what was management's valuation?


Schmidt: Much lower than we paid for it.


Baskin: And how was that communicated to the board?


Schmidt: I told them.


Baskin: So why don't you tell us what you remember telling the board in connection with the valuation?


Schmidt: I believe YouTube was worth somewhere around $600 million to $700 million.


Baskin: And you communicated that to the board?


Schmidt: I did.


Baskin: Of Google?


Schmidt: I did.


Baskin: What methodology did you use to come up with that number?


John P. Mancini, an attorney working for Google, objects.


Schmidt: My judgment.


Baskin: Was it based on cash flow analysis? Comparable companies? What were you using as the basis for your judgment?


Mancini objects.


Schmidt: It's just my judgment. I've been doing this a long time.


Baskin: So you orally communicated to your board during the course of the board meeting that you thought a more correct valuation for YouTube was $600 million to $700 million; is that what you said, sir?


Mancini objects to characterization of the testimony.


Schmidt: Again, to help you along, I believe that they were worth $600 million to $700 million.


Baskin: And am I correct that you were asking your board to approve an acquisition price of $1.65 billion; correct?


Schmidt: I did.


Mancini objects.


Baskin: I'm not very good at math, but I think that would be $1 billion or so more than you thought the company was, in fact, worth.


Mancini objects.


Schmidt: That is correct.


Later...


Baskin: Can you tell us what reasoning you explained?


Schmidt: Sure, this is a company with very little revenue, growing quickly with user adoption, growing much faster than Google Video, which was the product that Google had.

And they had indicated to us that they would be sold, and we believed that there would be a competing offer--because of who Google was--paying much more than they were worth.

In the deal dynamics, the price, remember, is not set by my judgment or by financial model or discounted cash flow.

It's set by what people are willing to pay.

And we ultimately concluded that $1.65 billion included a premium for moving quickly and making sure that we could participate in the user success in YouTube

Diana Dodi and Child......Gordon Sting Sumner and FRAGILE......


LBN-A DIFFERENT VIEW:

DIANA, DODI AND CHILD ?


LBN-LYRICS
OF LIFE


By STING:



If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are.


DID YOU KNOW:
***The can opener was invented 50 years after the invention of the can.
*** 50 gigabytes of information can hold up to 3 piles of single spaced typed pages that is taller than the Eiffel tower.
***Leonardo Da Vinci could also draw with one hand and write with the other simultaneously.
***The Dalai Lama enjoys collecting and repairing watches.
***The Dead Sea is 365 m below sea level.

LBN-QUOTE:
They say an old man is twice a child.Hamlet, II.II.385.



LBN-HISTORY:
On Oct. 6, 1981, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was shot to death by Islamic militants while reviewing a military parade.

Regime Change in Hollyw'd: Unh-Uh ... It's About the Basics
Analysis: The new group of movie executives will need to embrace more than Twitter.

Published: October 05, 2009




In a single day, two major studios ushered in regime change.
The message: A different day has arrived.

By replacing a respected, long-standing veteran in Dick Cook at Disney, and by dismissing two sharp, younger executives at Universal -- Marc Shmuger and David Linde -- the takeaway was the same.
New people are needed at the helm to forge the path toward a new Hollywood. (Read TheWrap's full coverage of the executive shuffles.)

In the case of Universal, it was by promoting two internal candidates, marketing chief Adam Fogelson and production head Donna Langley (which readers of Waxword would already have known since last week).

And in the case of Disney, it was by bringing in a talented executive from the Disney Channels, Rich Ross, who has built a reputation for understanding international markets and grasping the family-friendly brand.

But is change what will really happen?

Everyone talks about the transformative moment in which the entertainment industry finds itself.
Many throw the word "Twitter" into every conversation, as if invoking this phenomenon will in itself stop the deadly slide of DVD sales.

But as the industry faces the fundamental challenges of a contracting economy, the infidelity of audiences, the shortening of attention spans and elusive revenue streams of the Internet -- the mandate for change is far from clear.

Interviewed by TheWrap on Monday, Fogelson was asked about his vision for change.
“In terms of my vision, it’s our vision,” he responded vaguely.
“Donna and Rick (Finkelstein) and I have spent a lot of time over the past few days making sure we all felt good about something we could accomplish together. “

He added: “One of the goals is to redouble our efforts to make sure every time we greenlight a movie we are taking a responsible risk.”

In other words, focus on the bottom line.
Well, that’s not new.

Langley told TheWrap that they were excited about bringing marketing ideas into the pre-greenlight process.
That’s not new, either.

At Disney, Rich Ross was not giving interviews.
He was still -- an executive explained -- getting up to speed.
He met with his new staff on Monday afternoon.

What will it take to guide the studios through the shoals of the current maelstrom, other than just squeezing the price of marketing, cutting producer deals and making A-list actors take their money on the back end?

If the movie industry is headed toward crisis, it is not at all clear that the new group of executives have some secret insights about how to forge Hollywood’s future.

Indeed, the fundamental skills of a movie mogul may not be about understanding Twitter at all.

It may instead be about re-embracing the fundamental skills that go into making and selling entertaining movies.

For the talent agencies, that means an emphasis on cultivating relationships with the talent.
That was clearly missing in the Universal equation.

And independent producers, who are struggling as never before, will tell you that it’s about teasing out the right stories, and making them for the right price.

Anyone with common sense will tell you that many movies have gotten too expensive, and that audiences are less easily fooled today by schlock.

Clearly, tapping the global nature of Hollywood’s brand -- the one true area of growth in the moviemaking industry -- is going to be critical.

That’s not actually new, either.

It’s those fundamental skills that will make the difference for these major studios as they face the next period of change.

“Everything is being revamped and changed, but what is really changed?” asked one leading talent agent, who declined to be identified.

“This notion of ‘change’ is just for change’s sake,” he said.
“It’s not really changing anything.
It goes back to --
if you put talented people in who appreciate artists,
you’ll do well.”

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Refugee Wyclef Jean going back to school...Plans to earn degree from Berklee College of Music

Wyclef Jean going back to school




Plans to earn degree from Berklee College of Music


Associated Press


Oct 2, 2009, 05:57 PM ET



BOSTON --

After having sold and produced about 31 million copies of albums,


Wyclef Jean is going back to school to earn a degree from Boston's Berklee College of Music.



The former frontman for the Fugees said Friday that the school has a program flexible enough for his needs and plans to attend his first class Monday.



Jean's first class is on Monday.



His curriculum this fall includes ear training, theory, improvisation and guitar.



The Haitian-born hip-hop artist said he left college after only one semester to pursue his career and that going back to school has always been a goal.



The 36-year-old is scheduled to release a remix album Nov. 10.


TILA TEQUILA



Remember the whole thing about whether or not Shawne Merriman beat her up ?


Well she has finally cracked because she has been asking her followers to write either #TilaDontKillYourself or #TilaCommitSuicide and whichever one got on the trending topics first she would do.


As well as this, she is saying that she is one of gods chosen people and she knows when the world will end, why it will end and what has happened to people in their past.


Here are some of her tweets:


I will live if I see that mankind is anything worth fighting for…unfortunately…God is VERY disappointed in mankind right now.


I know SO much about why the world is ending in 2012.


God has given up on you humans U only get worse.


He has lost faith in you…


When I had my death experiences, I actually died twice and saw the light.


My life never been the same since..


I saw God & he told me lots of things.


When the docs brought me back to life.


I never saw the world the same again.


Im telling u now.


I am God’s Messenger.