Disney has spent $350 million to acquire the popular children’s web site Club Penguin, in a deal that could givethe site owners an additional $350 million later. It’s a move by the giant in children’s entertainment to consolidate its position on the Internet. Club Penguin was foundedin 2005 by three fathers from British Columbia. It’s a subscription site with over 700,000 members. Users are able to customize penguin characters and then play and chat together online. Under the deal, Disney is paying $350 million now, with up to another $350 million at the end of 2009 if the site meets growth targets set by Disney. Disney redesigned its own site at thebeginning of 2007, but it’s been losing ground to younger, fresher sites in recent years. The company plans to make Club Penguin part of its brand, with consumer products and possibly a themepark ride. Part of the strategy is to make Club Penguin known in Europe and Asia. “While it is not a global brand today, our intent is to make it one,” said Robert A. Iger,Disney’s chief executive. Club Penguin experienced 4.7 million unique visitors in June, a rise of 159% over the year before. The site will continue to be managed by its founders.
Tag Archive: British Columbia
Disney Acquires Club Penguin
Uwe Boll Announces Five Bouts with Critics
Since 1994, German filmmaker Uwe Boll has managed to craft himself a reputation as the Ed Wood of his generation, producing and directing films—often based on video games—which are often considered so bad as to be unwatchable. (And no, we don’t mean “so bad they’re good,” we just mean “bad.”) Boll’s films make it to a few theaters, but just barely, and yet Boll keeps getting rights to scripts and properties and churns out opus after opus thanks to a provision in German tax law that rewards investments in Germany’s film industry. Investors get to write of the entirety of film investments as a tax deduction, and even invest borrowed money and write off financing fees. If the movie makes money, investors pay taxes on the profits; if the movie loses money…writeoff.
Sondigo Unveils Wireless Media Bridge
Sondigo, the new consumer hardware brand of British Columbia based Networking Limited (LENL), earlier this week announced a new wireless media bridge designed to bring audio streaming over 802.11 networks. The new Sirocco Wireless Audio Bridge is priced at $139.99 and available now.
The Sondigo Sirocco Wireless Audio Bridge, said the company, uses a consumer’s existing 802.11g wireless network infrastructure to deliver reportedly 100 percent of all PC audio formats and player applications – including Apple iTunes (protected content), Realnetworks’ Rhapsody, Yahoo! Music Engine, Windows Media Player (with DRM), AOL music, Flash and Web based players and more – via special patented audio driver technology to home theater and PC speaker systems. The Sirocco includes support for Dolby Digital 5.1-channel audio via an S/PDIF optical digital audio output as well as 5.1 channel analog audio outputs for compatibility with PC speaker systems.
