WebProNews » The Office

Searchers Ready for Football, Sunny, and Office

Chris Crum — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:59:20 +0000

In a way, today is a big day for Hulu. The popular video site will soon likely attract a huge number of views based on two shows that return to television this evening – NBC’s The Office and FX’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. These two have been huge hits for Hulu in the past, and that will likely continue as the two programs begin pushing out new episodes.

The series premiere of The Office will make its Hulu debut on Friday September 18th, but It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia fans will unfortunately have to wait until Friday September 25th to catch the premiere of the show’s fifth season on the site. Once it makes its appearance, however, I would expect plenty of views (and ad views).

Web searchers are obviously awaiting both of these shows, as they both appear in Google’s Hot Trends list at the time of this writing. "Sunny" is at number 24, surprisingly way ahead of The Office, which is at 93.

Way up at number 8, however, is "thursday night football schedule," indicating what people really want to watch tonight. The only game on tonight is Georgia Tech vs. Miami on ESPN (and on the web at ESPN360.com), but I would expect it to get pretty good ratings, if the amount of web interest in football is any indication.

Last month, football-related sites saw some of the biggest gains in web traffic, as shown by the Compete 250. NFL.com ranked among the month’s biggest gainers, growing 123% and reaching 6.5 million unique visitors, while individual team sites saw tremendous uptick, and fantasy football sites attracted 43.8% more traffic than in July.

Facebook Asks For Money But Says They Don’t Need It

Andy Beal — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:29:48 +0000

Does anyone else see the similarity between Facebook’s attempts to raise additional funds and last week’s episode of The Office?

A quick re-cap. Michael Scott’s paper company is offered a buyout by his old employer. On their way to the negotiation table, everyone is eager to ensure that Michael Scott doesn’t reveal that his company is actually flat broke, and desperate for the money.

(click to watch the clip at Hulu.com)

Enter Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg:

“We absolutely do not need to take money,” she said. “We might take money, but it doesn’t mean we need to.”

OK, while Facebook is not exactly flat broke, it is playing a game of brinkmanship with venture capital firms–which value Facebook in the $2-3 billion range instead of the $5-6 billion Sandberg wants.

If you were a betting (wo)man where would you put your money? Facebook getting the valuation it wants, or VCs getting something lower?

Comments

Microsoft Tracking Down Office Leakers

WebProNews Staff — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 22:18:46 +0000

It isn’t the company’s massive revenue generator, the Office productivity suite, that has been leaked, but a pair of training videos for Microsoft’s in-house usage created by Ricky Gervais, who developed “The Office” TV series.

Microsoft Wants To Cut The Chatter

The training videos are still available here and here on Google Video, which unlike YouTube has not taken them off the site. Microsoft has been chasing down whoever posted them online.

The videos were never intended for public distribution, but now that they have been online for a few days, Microsoft may as well have posted them with a “Come grab these!” banner on the Internet.

Few topics are left unaddressed as Gervais and Merchant spoof their way through the workday at Microsoft. Even the company’s ultra-wealthy founder, Bill Gates, gets poked by the duo.

Reuters cited a Microsoft spokesperson who confirmed the videos were made for the company in 2004. The videos feature Gervais in his “David Brent” persona, and “The Office” series co-writer Stephen Merchant.

Whoever chose to share these videos should know that vengeance is coming from Microsoft:

“We are actively working to investigate how and why they have appeared now,” the spokeswoman said.

She refused to say why the company opposed the airing of the clips on the video-sharing sites.

Gervais is reportedly very unhappy about the release. A CNet UK article on the now-playing-online videos claimed that part of the agreement with Microsoft included a provision that the videos not be made public.

Oops.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.