fox interactive

Yahoo taps former News Corp. exec Ross Levinsohn

Yahoo has hired former Fox Interactive Media president Ross Levinsohn, Yahoo company announced yesterday.

Starting in November, Levinsohn will become Yahoo's executive vice president of the Americas. In his new role, Levinsohn will be in charge of the Web giant's "media group, advertising sales, and partnerships," the company said in a statement. He will report directly to Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz.

Levinsohn will leave his current position as co-founder and managing director of equity management firm Fuse Capital.

Although Levinsohn of late has been on the investment side of the digital media business, he has lots … Read more

News Corp. posts revenue drop, misses estimates

Buffeted by a steep drop in its advertising revenues, News Corp. on Thursday reported an 8.4 percent decline in its fiscal second quarter revenues and missed analysts expectations.

Revenues fell to $7.9 billion in the quarter ended December 31, compared with $8.6 billion for the same quarter a year ago. Wall Street was expecting the media giant to generate $8.39 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

News Corp. posted a net loss of $6.4 billion, or $2.45 a share, during the quarter, compared with a net profit of $832 million, or 27 cents a share, … Read more

Online videos post double-digit December growth

As Americans tuned into their computers during December, the number of online videos viewed jumped 13 percent over the previous month, according to a report released Wednesday by comScore.

In the U.S., viewers watched 14.3 billion online videos in December. That translates into nearly 150 million users watching an average of 96 videos each, comScore noted in its report.

The average viewer, meanwhile, spent more than a total of 5 hours with their eyes glued to the videos, which ran an average of 3.2 minutes. Hulu viewers, however, watched online videos that ran an average of 10.… Read more

Report: News Corp. lays off 5 percent at digital unit

The digital unit that oversees MySpace and Photobucket for News Corp. has laid off about 100 people, or 5 percent of its workforce, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Fox Interactive Media was formed in 2005 to oversee News Corp.'s digital holdings.

MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe said last year that the social-network site has seen big gains in ad growth. But some of News Corp.'s other digital holdings don't appear to be faring as well. Staci Kramer at the blog PaidContent.org reported last week that FIM had plans to shut down its storage site, Flektor and … Read more

Yahoo Video gains, YouTube crosses 5.3 billion streams

Post updated 11:45 AM PST

Beet.TV has the scoop on Nielsen Online's tracking of video streams for September 2008. Yahoo Video streams surged 56 percent and unique users grew 35 percent month over month.

The month of September was also good for Google's YouTube, which had 12 percent growth in streams. Fox Interactive, MSN/Windows Live and Nickelodeon all had negative growth from August to September 2008, according to Nielsen Online.

It's unclear why Yahoo Video saw such a dramatic increase compared to other sites in September. CNET News has call into the company and … Read more

Did Photobucket's investors break the rules?

There's something funny going on in the venture capital world: a tipster pitched multiple media outlets the story that some sketchy business had surrounded the early-stage investment in photo-sharing site Photobucket, a 20 percent stake in a company that eventually was acquired by News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media for about $300 million.

The Wall Street Journal, coincidentally also owned by News Corp., ran with the tip. The publication explained that an early investment in Photobucket had been made on behalf of Insight Venture Partners' executives, excluding the investors in the firm--which include, among others, the endowment fund for … Read more

Study: Fox Interactive tops digital display ad market

Updated August 27 at 4:14 p.m. PDT, with correction to Fox Interactive Media's ranking for the preceding month.

Fox Interactive Media grabbed the most market share among digital display ad publishers in the month of June, according to a report released Tuesday by ComScore Ad Metrix.

Fox Interactive, which owns MySpace, accounted for 15.9 percent of display ad views, or impressions, during the month of June, followed by Yahoo, which ranked second with 10.5 percent of the market. The results marked the third consecutive month that Fox Interactive has maintained a lead over Yahoo, since … Read more

Photobucket, Target sign photo-printing deal

Discount retailer Target has signed a deal with photo-sharing service Photobucket, adding it to the small collection of online partners for its in-store photo-printing service.

Through the partnership, members of Photobucket can directly order photos for pickup at most Target stores (presumably any Targets that don't have photo-printing stations would be the exception). Typically, the photos will be ready within an hour.

Photobucket, a unit of News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media, is the third current partner for the retailer; Target already has partnerships in place with Shutterfly's and Kodak's online photo services.

Last week, Photobucket announced a partnership … Read more

Photobucket, Scrapblog form crafty partnership

Photobucket, the massive photo-sharing site that was acquired by News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media last year, has partnered with Scrapblog, a start-up that lets members create online scrapbooks.

Through the partnership, whose financial terms were not disclosed, Scrapblog's drag-and-drop application will be available within Photobucket so that users can work their Photobucket albums into scrapbooks and then share or embed them on the Web. Starting in September, printed versions of Scrapblog scrapbooks will be available for purchase.

"Scrapbooks have traditionally been an important part of how people have kept and shared memories offline for many years, and … Read more