Microsoft, Viacom agree to $500M advertising pact
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Microsoft and entertainment broadcaster Viacom have agreed to a five-year deal to share content and partner on advertising initiatives.
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The media company that owns MTV, Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures said Wednesday that it will now advertise online through Microsoft as part of a larger deal.
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MTV Networks owners Viacom Inc. said  it &quot;welcomes&quot; the opportunity to license its content to Apple  Inc. after the iPod maker signed a deal with top online video  distributor YouTube.
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Facebook will sell a $240 million minority stake to Microsoft, which as part of the deal will also expand the advertising services it provides to the social networking phenom, the companies said Wednesday in a statement.The size of the ownership stake Microsoft will take during Facebook&#39;s next round of financing puts Facebook&#39;s valuation at a whopping $15 billion.&#160;Google had reportedly been courting Facebook as well.In addition to the ownership piece, Microsoft will also extend its existing agreement to provide banner ads to Facebook in the U.S. With this deal, Microsoft will become Facebook&#39;s exclusive third-party ad platform as well as provide Facebook ads internationally.Facebook will likely devote the cash influx from its next financing round to bankroll the torrid growth it is expecting in the coming 12 months in usage and headcount.With about 300 employees now, Facebook expects to have about 700 a year from now, its CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg said last week at the&#160;Web 2.0 Summit.Meanwhile, the site is growing its usage at breakneck speed with about 250,000 new users registering every day.Founded in 2004, it currently has about 49 million active users today, up from 12 million in December. More than half of its active members return to the site daily. Some 59 percent of its users are outside the U.S.Earlier Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post reported that Facebook was in the final stages of making a decision on whether to do this deal with Microsoft or Google.For Microsoft, which hasn&#39;t attained as strong a position in online advertising as it had hoped and lags behind Google, landing this deal could be a major win, as long as Facebook proves to be as attractive an advertising vehicle as expected.The Journal reported later on Wednesday that Facebook expects a profit of about $30 million this year, on revenue of $150 million.Google and Yahoo provide ads for Facebook rival MySpace.Still, questions remain about social networking sites&#39; full potential for advertising, since most of their content is largely unregulated and created by millions of individuals, resulting often in material that is vulgar and objectionable.Facebook plans to share more ideas for revving up its advertising business on Nov. 6, at an event in New York to which it has invited what it calls &quot;its closest advertisers.&quot;&quot;As part of [the event], Facebook executives will discuss new approaches for advertising online,&quot; a Facebook spokeswoman said. &quot;We are not sharing any further details.&quot;Facebook, MySpace, and others are also under close scrutiny from law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad because sexual predators use social-networking sites to stalk and victimize people, in particular minors.The Journal first reported Google&#39;s and Microsoft&#39;s pursuit of the Facebook investment a month ago.
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(InfoWorld) - As part of its planÂ to earn more revenue from online advertising, Microsoft is teaming with a San Francisco-based provider of mobile broadband advertising to deliver advertising to users of municipal Wi-Fi networks. Microsoft and JiWire have struck a deal to deliver advertising combined with location-based content from Microsoft's MSN portal on one metropolitan area Wi-Fi network that is currently deployed and another in the late stages of development, and the companies haveÂ plans to expand to more networks in the works for the future, said David Blumenfeld, vice president of marketing at JiWire. The advertising will come in several ways, but the most evident will be an MSN-based page users in Portland, Oregon, and areas outside of Detroit will see after logging in to Wi-Fi networks delivered by MetroFi and MichTel Communications respectively, Blumenfeld said. The MetroFi network in Portland currently has 13,000 monthly users, and the MichTel network in Oakland County, Michigan, once deployed, will be the largest in the U.S., covering 910 square miles and serving 1.2 million people, according to JiWire. In addition to MetroFi and MichTel, JiWire partners with about 18 other network operators that provide wireless broadband to hotels, airports, cafes, and the like, he said. Microsoft and JiWire also will explore other ways to deliver advertising, such as delivering what are called "ultramercials," or ads that users watch before logging in to a Wi-Fi network so they can use the network for free, Blumenfeld said. JiWire also has an advertising appliance that runs on the network and allows network operators to deliver ads throughout a Wi-Fi user's session, and Microsoft has the opportunity to sell and deliver ads to networks in this way as well, he added. Though the exact terms of the Microsoft-JiWire deal are not being disclosed, Blumenfeld said it is a nonexclusive, ad-revenue sharing deal and is a multimillion-dollar opportunity for both companies.
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Media conglomerate says it will make an offer for 77.7% of financial news site it still doesn&#39;t own. NEW YORK  - Media conglomerate Viacom Inc.
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Viacom Inc.  agreed to sell its  Famous Music publishing business to Sony/ATV Music Publishing  for about $370 million, the Wall Street Journal reported on its  Web site on Wednesday.
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Viacom and Disney agreed Thursday to pay a total of &#36;1.5 million to settle government charges the companies violated advertising limits for children's television programming.
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Nickelodeon, a division of Viacom Inc.&#39;s MTV  Networks, agreed with Sony Music Label Group and SONY BMG  Commercial Music Group to jointly develop and finance TV and  music projects over the next four years.
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Yahoo Inc. (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) has agreed to extend its deal to place advertisements on Microsoft Corp.&#39;s (MSFT.
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Media companies including Viacom  , Microsoft Corp. , News Corp.'s  Fox  and MySpace units and others have agreed to guidelines aimed at  protecting copyrights online, a source familiar with the matter  said on Thursday.
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Viacom Inc.  agreed to sell its Famous Music publishing business to Sony/ATV Music Publishing for about $370 million, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site on Wednesday.
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The media company that owns MTV, Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures said Wednesday that it will now advertise online through Microsoft Corp. as part of a larger deal.
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NEW YORK - Yahoo Inc. has agreed to extend its deal to place advertisements on Microsoft Corp.&#39;s MSN sites in the United States and overseas by one year through June 2006, Yahoo said Thursday.
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Microsoft and Viacom team up on ads and content, and Google quickly points to the deal as evidence that the online ad market is plenty competitive.
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Microsoft will pay as much as $500 million as a part of settlement of the antitrust lawsuit that may be filed by rival software maker Novell, the company said Monday, within an attempt to end its antitrust fight.
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Children's cable TV channels owned  by Viacom Inc. VIAb.N and Disney Corp. DIS.N have agreed to  settle allegations they violated federal advertising  restrictions for children's programing, U.S. regulators said on  Thursday.