Comments on: News Corp. shuns Fox Interactive in ROO deal

By: DataGrant Venture Capital News » Blog Archive » News Corp Invests $12 million in ROO, Leaves Fox Baffled

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:39:26 +0000

[...] Read the complete report. [...]

By: » News to know: Vista questions; Scoble’s bad week; LinkedIn spam | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

Tue, 22 May 2007 23:04:21 +0000

[...] Corp. shuns Fox Interactive in ROO [...]

By: Roo Secures $25 Million More Funding » Web TV Wire

Roo Secures $25 Million More Funding » Web TV Wire — Tue, 22 May 2007 14:44:25 +0000

[...] Roo has completed a private equity financing with gross proceeds of $25 million, in a common stock transaction. The participants in the transaction are accredited institutional investors, the majority of which are existing investors which include media giant News Corp. [...]

By: Much Latah

Much Latah — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 23:25:13 +0000

I know the ROO people and business very well as a former employee. They pulled this deal out off their ass and like everything else they have done, they’ll screw it up, too.

By: Alley veteran

Alley veteran — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 20:10:19 +0000

Disaster is correct. ROO management has no clue and they are still dealing with streaming. Biz model for the company is good however. Id say its unlikely news corp actually put cash into this company. Remember they did a deal with news corp sometime ago and most likely needed to give warrants in order to get the deal. Doubt news corp would exercise those warrants anytime soon.

By: Patricia

Patricia — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 16:31:33 +0000

@ video, most people have expected this in the market since last year. No big surprise to see News Corp make the Roo move.

By: Adam benayoun

Adam benayoun — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 09:53:34 +0000

After seeing the “you are the 999,999 visitors to enter, please click here” advertisment in their frontpage, i’d say that this isnt serious at all.

By: Video Existentialism

Video Existentialism — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 06:45:34 +0000

My educated interpretation of this intriguing development is that Fox as a media giant is probably thinking of going big into putting their shows online. Eventually they’ll get either ROO or Brightcove to do it, but they do have hours upon hours of tapes sitting on shelves gathering dust, why not put them online to generate some ad revenues.

For instance, their hit show “American Idol” must have hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of audition tapes of Idol wannabes who did not make it, and some of those failed auditions have proven to provide more entertainment value than the polished ones who made the cut. Conceivably, Fox could put all those audition tapes online and make some extra dough.

By: si-mi

si-mi — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 06:15:37 +0000

I have worked with these people in the past and it’s a matter of lack of communication and silos within a large organization.

By: lemon obrien

lemon obrien — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 05:17:17 +0000

12 million is way beter than 200. I hin the interactive folks got their ego hurt; and should probably get a good talking too.

By: Michael Arrington

Michael Arrington — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 04:57:11 +0000

I didn’t delete anything – ph, your insightful comments are always welcome here.

By: permanent hater

permanent hater — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 04:52:55 +0000

Why was my comment deleted? Michael, am I no longer wanted on your blog? I raised a serious question – who cares about this?

By: www.techtagg.com - See Tech Taggers view on this story!

www.techtagg.com - See Tech Taggers view on this story! — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 04:51:41 +0000

News Corp. shuns Fox Interactive in ROO deal…

According to TC, The Wall Street Journal reported (behind paywall) this morning that News Corp would announce a $12 million investment in online video startup ROO. However, unlike other investments and acquisitions in Internet startups, News Corp. subs…

By: Josh

Josh — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 04:48:53 +0000

Im surprised Newscorp wouldnt let their experts (fi) handle this arm of the empire.

By: Duncan

Duncan — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 04:22:58 +0000

Is it really that surprising that Fox Interactive was bypassed? RooTV has been providing Video for the leading News Corp site in Australia (news.com.au) for a long time now, and probably other media parts of the News Corp empire that aren’t tied in with Fox Interactive. It makes sense really, the fit is better with the publishing arm than the interactive arm…although I’ll have to point out with the irony in Fox Interactive getting upset: rootv.com is registered to Petty Consulting