By Karina Masolova, karina@plainlanguagemedia.com
After pulling its Disney and Pixar movies from Netflix when its contract ends in 2019, Disney CEO Bob Iger confirms that the company will also move its Star Wars and Marvel Cinematic Universe content from the streaming provider. Disney’s own planned streaming service will launch late 2019.
Marvel is rolling out preschool content for the first time with Marvel Super Hero Adventures!—a short-form series complete with a in-house publishing program and consumer products line. The first season will include 10 short-form animated episodes (clocking in at 3.5 minutes) and focus on themes of friendship, heroism and helping others. On the merchandising side, toy partner Hasbro is joined by Mad Engine, Jay Franco, GBG, and Jakks Pacific. More partners and products will appear in October during Marvel Mania.
Disney is producing a new Facebook/Instagram-exclusive series, Club Mickey Mouse. Featuring a cast of eight influencers from its Maker Studios roster, it follows in the footsteps of other Disney Digital Network shows like As Told By Emoji and Disney IRL.
The NFL Players Association partners with StatMuse to launch a new voice app that enables fans to interact with individual players. Fans will be able to ask about scores, stats, and more from players like Peyton Manning, Jerry Rice, Le’Veon Bell, Devonta Freeman, Jay Ajayi, Drew Brees, Deion Sanders, Terrell Owels, David Johnson, and Scott Van Pelt. The NFLPA plans to add more voices to the roster.
Vimeo makes a technology pact where it will power two Lionsgate-owned OTT services, Kevin Hart’s Laugh Out Loud (LOL) comedy platform and the two-year-old Tribeca Shortlist. Vimeo cancelled plans to launch its own subscription service earlier this summer, but currently powers over 500 partner subscription services.
AMC and Mountain Dew launch The Walking Dead Encounter augmented reality app. Fans can experience the show’s iconic zombies and then share the interactions via social media. The deal sees The Walking Dead on-pack and in-store branding roll out on more than 100 million individual Mountain Dew products.
Fashion designer Anna Sui, AI marketing platform Snaps, and Macy’s brand INC Intl. Concepts partner to launch an exclusive chatbot experience on Facebook Messenger to promote the designer’s fall collection. Shoppers receive personalized notifications and will be able to buy products directly in the chat. The experience also features an exclusive emoji keyboard.
Facebook is allegedly offering record labels and music publishers hundreds of millions of dollars so that users on thesocial network can post videos containing popular songs. The lump sum is meant to assuage rights holders in the two-year interm period that Facebook develops a system that will auto-identify copyrighted content. The network recently launched Watch, a new hub for episodic shows and YouTube competitor.
YouTube is getting down to business, rolling out improvements to its livestreaming functionality and targeting “alternative” sites. The improvements include features that make broadcasting delays even shorter as well as new chat moderation tools.
Meanwhile, Apple pulls the popular a third-party viewing app ProTube from its iOS store. The app included features like background listening that are not currently available in the free version of the official YouTube app (but this perk is included in the $9.99-per-month YouTube Red service).
The Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) and some of the labels it represents (Universal, Warner, Sony) settle with YouTube-MP3, a major streaming ripping site. The site will be shut down and YouTube-MP3 is reportedly taking all responsibility for the copyright infringement that has occurred on its platform.