As many of you know, I recently left the Safran Digital Group for a position as Vice President of Digital Marketing at 20th Century Fox Films, a division of Fox Filmed Entertainment.

There were many factors that went into my decision, but the bottom line was that I was offered a chance to return home to the studio and work with some of the brightest executives in the business applying my experiences and learnings from SDG, from a digital innovation, distribution and monetization standpoint, to feature film campaigns.

In addition, Fox recently announced an aggressive reorganization which puts a new focus on developing digital business models and keeps my goal of helping to develop sustainable digital economics aligned with my professional responsibilites.

During this transition, and the negotiations that preceded it, my blogging and tweeting has suffered significantly. As much as I’d like to revive the volume of posts to both, the reality is that I don’t expect that to happen for a while.

I’ve turned off the comments for this post, so if you have any comments or questions, please direct message me on Twitter.
Proud of you guys,
JZ

Reposted from Kara Swisher’s post at All Things D:

BoomTown has confirmed a report by Nikki Finke of Deadline Hollywood Daily that former AOL head Jon Miller is set to take over as digital head at News Corp., replacing Peter Levinsohn. Read the rest of this entry »

Reposted from Paid Content’s Staci D. Kramer:

Peter Chernin’s decision to leave News Corp after 12-plus years as COO set off a series of dominoes that will be rippling for months to come. As part of the response, Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch combined all LA-based creative content—movies and TV—under Jim Gianopulos and Tom Rothman, co-chairmen and CEOs of Fox Filmed Entertainment. Now Gianopulos and Rothman are getting their own digital content head as Peter Levinsohn moves from president of Fox Interactive Media to president of new media and digital distribution for Fox Filmed Entertainment. Some details of Levinsohn’s new job, which won’t be announced until Monday, emerged with the news that Jon Miller plans to join News Corp. as chief digital officer, with operating responsibility that includes MySpace and the other units of FIM, as well as Jamba.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just for fun.

This is new.

I was surprised to see this ad, a display unit for YouTube HD running in my Google RSS Reader on a feed from Silicon Alley Insider. Google serving house ads for its own video service, YouTube?

The ad is running in the Google Ad Sense network, the search giant’s broad, yet targeted hyper-advertising distribution network. It’s what amounts to a house ad, meaning either YouTube is spending to advertise its service, which I doubt, or Google is undersold on their inventory and they’re running free ads for their video service. Read the rest of this entry »

Who isn’t fascinated with the deconstruction of the media business as reported by, wait for it… the media?

Implosion Reporting has developed into its own cottage industry, not quite as tabloid as Octomom headlines, but just about as ubiquitous. Is there any less irony in the blogosphere selling pageviews on the backs of dead start-ups as there is in E!’s coverage of the Rhianna assault?

Tragedy sells. If it bleeds, it leads. Misery loves company. The Titanic has hit an iceberg and it’s on Youtube.

Read the rest of this entry »

Charlie Rose gives an enlightening looks into the thought processes of newspaper and print media executives as they confront the uncertainty in the future of their business. At the table are Time cover story writer Walter Isaacson, the Daily News’ Mort Zuckerman and the WSJ’s Robert Thomson. Who ever thought hanging out with four old white guys could be so much fun!

Read the rest of this entry »

Lots of live-to-tape variety shows. Girls in short skirts and low tops with big smiles. Guys with glasses holding mics and clipboards. Music acts and comedians with props. Great for the in-laws. Low cost programming that does big numbers.

Sound like some of the programming we’re increasingly seeing on network TV in the states? Get ready for more. A lot more.

Great article by Michael Hirschorn in the Atlantic about the future of broadcast network programming and the inevitable decline in high-production value, scripted, serialized shows.

It’s worth reading the full article, but here’s the short version courtesy of The Business Insider:

Read the rest of this entry »

A few months ago my buddy got married. As favors, he gave away t-shirts with his image in the Obamaesque Shepard Fairey design. Awesome.

Last week I bought an Obama T-shirt. It cost way too much. I wore it to a Superbowl party yesterday and three people said they were going to buy one (get yours here).

Today I read that the “Obama Brand Stimulates Big Sales” and that, according to the New York Times, Obama merchandise did over $200 million in sales. In the one month of November!

All this got me thinking about how to use this global celebrity to lift up the economy. Read the rest of this entry »

Warning -  this post gets a little zen

It took a great deal of courage for TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington to publish his Some Things Need To Change post chastising the digital rat race that he, in part, has helped to fuel. He concludes:

I’ve decided the right thing to do is take some time off and get a better perspective on what I’m spending my life doing. I’ll be taking most of February off from writing, and decide what the best future for me is while sitting on a beach somewhere far away from my iPhone and laptop.

I applaud Mike and others like him who are taking this moment to consider what their role can be in moving the planet and the global community forward and out of this global depression. It’s a new era of responsibility that begs the question of each of us - what am I really doing? Read the rest of this entry »