Media companies are turning to the internet as a distribution avenue more and more as each month passes, whether it works or not. Sony (NYSE:SNE) will release "Angel of Death" online and hope that this somehow drives DVD sales.

The way the release will be done is clearly set up to alienate consumers and will only drive resentment. According to The Wall Street Journal, "The series will be released online eight minutes at a time, over 10 weeks." After that, the DVD of the program will come out. It will not appear in theaters or on TV.

Imagine how annoying it will be for potential viewers to have to go to websites over and over again before they can get the all of the "Angel of Death" content. Many people will simply abandon trying to collect all of the installments.

Sony will probably get plenty of hate mail.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 2 47wallst.com

Sony (SNE) to launch new show online, alienate customers originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 16 Jun 2008 10:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Sell stuff that isn't real online! originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 17 Dec 2007 06:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

News Corp (NYSE: NWS)'s MySpace is getting into the online game business in the hopes of attracting and keeping more users. The largest social networking website will announce a deal with online game company Oberon, which provides games to a number of large web properties including Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO).

According to The Wall Street Journal, "the companies plan to incorporate features into the MySpace games area that allow users to socialize by inviting friends to participate in multiplayer games and to chat while they are playing." This kind of online activity is much smaller than playing games on video consoles, but it is growing more quickly.

What appears to be happening here is that MySpace is beginning to turn itself into a portal not terribly different from Yahoo! or MSN. It already offers video and music services. It also has instant messaging and other communications features like a partnership with Skype.

The movement into the portal space is smart. The bear case on social networks is that it is hard to pin down the activities and demographics of their audiences, making marketing on the sites difficult. Offering services that provide magnets which draw MySpace users to one activity makes it easier for advertisers to push messages to those users based on their behavior.

Being a portal may not be the business that it used to be. But it still appears to be better than being a social network, at least from an advertiser's viewpoint.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor of 247wallst.com

MySpace gets games originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 23 Oct 2007 10:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO) is a creepy company in a lot of ways: extremely violent video games, scandals over hidden nudity, accounting and options investigations, and constant management turnover.

Now we can add another item to the list. Take-Two's All-Pro Football 2K8 features O.J. Simpson as one of 240 former NFL legends. A judge has ordered Simpson to hand over any money that he makes from the licensing deal to the Goldman family to satisfy the civil judgment they received in a wrongful death suit.

It's obvious that the judge did the right thing, although it seems unlikely that there was that much money involved. Simpson is hopefully not enough of a selling point to draw a huge amount of money for his likeness in a video game.

But why would Take-Two management want as putrid a person as O.J. in a game? Can a game featuring someone who was found liable for 2 deaths really be rated "E for Everyone"?

Take-Two has never had any problem with acting in poor taste, and that trend continues.

Take-Two Interactive (TTWO) makes video game with O.J. Simpson originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 08 Aug 2007 13:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.