Cheeze Acquired By Digital Marketing Group PLC

One of the UK's most podcast-friendly businesses, Cheeze, has been bought.

Acquisition of two companies for £24m creates leading UK digital direct marketing platform

Digital Marketing Group plc ("DMG" or the "Group") today announces the acquisition of 100% of the share capital of two leading UK companies, Cheeze Limited ("Cheeze") and Alphanumeric Group (trading as "Jaywing"), for a total initial consideration of £24m, comprising cash and shares. The acquired companies' management teams will continue to develop the businesses within the Group with further consideration shares and performance options in the group dependent upon future growth. These cornerstone acquisitions follow on from the Group's listing on AIM and acquisitions of HSM Ltd and Scope Creative Marketing (trading as "Dig for Fire") in October 2006.

Joost In Time? Broadcasters Get Nervous

Sending shivers down the spines of broadcasters everywhere, the founders of Skype now look set to change the TV map as they did telephony, as their much-previewed Venice Project hit the streets yesterday, re-titled Joost.

The BBC's famously "objective" reporting deserted it as their correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones stated, "But the big question is what is there to watch? So far, it is hard to see a compelling reason to switch on to Joost, which will be a free service supported by advertising."

Citing BTVision, Channel 4's 4OD service, and Babelgum as likely competitors, there was no mention of the original features or the different take on TV which Joost seems to offer, nor the developers' previous form, which would seem to indicate that Joost may just have a very good chance of re-inventing online entertainment.

Music Industry Moves Towards Podcasting

"Sony BMG has decided to dip its toes into the world of podcasted music with its recent agreement with marketing agency Rock River Communications Inc., making it the first (and only, for the time being) major music label in the US to license music for podcasting.

While you may not have heard of Rock River Communications, you will most likely recognize what they do. The agency creates promotional mix CDs for companies like Volkswagen, The Gap, Verizon, Chrysler, and more to hand out at retail stores and dealerships. Rock River, in an attempt to move past CD-only distribution, is now creating promotional podcasts for Chrysler and Ford Motors.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Ford and Chrysler are both paying Sony BMG a flat fee to license music for podcast distribution for one year, no matter how many copies are downloaded. On the customer's side, the podcast will be free and can be kept forever. Rock River says that they are in talks to license music from more music labels in the future for podcasting." - Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica.