Thursday, July 22, 2010

FIVE HUNDRED MILLION......HALF A BILLION....ONE TWELFTH OF WORLDS POPULATION.....one Facebook.....



FACEBOOK GETS 500 MILLION MEMBERS:












Mark Zuckerberg sure is popular.












Facebook, the online social networking site, has reached 500 million members, making its Web population equal to the size of the world's third largest country.












Birthed in a Harvard dorm room in 2004, the site's number of users has accelerated in the past year.












In January 2009, Facebook had 150 million members.














The company isn't suffering for ambition:




last month, Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO, said that the site would hit one billion users.
















This fall, Aaron Sorkin will release a movie depicting the rise of the company.


















The tagline? "You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies."














LBN-INVESTIGATES:



An adult human body contains approximately 100 trillion cells.


Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Holy HOLLYWOOD................

LBN-THIS DAY IN HISTORY:














Hollywood Sign Is Dedicated (1923)








The iconic Hollywood sign overlooking the community, which spells out its name in 50-foot (15-meter) high white letters originally said "Hollywood land".








It was erected as an advertisement for a real estate firm promoting a new housing development with that name.








Though not intended to be permanent, the sign quickly became an internationally recognized landmark, and the last four letters were removed in 1949.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

The Music Industry’s 360 Deal = Rape!





The 360 deal reflects the fact that most of


musician’s income


now



comes from source other than recorded music.





These include live performance, merchandising and part time stints with “Staples or Starbucks”.




In the future these artists can get used to flogging whatever they can fit names on.





New Rules If you want a piece of pie , the record company demands 360 degrees of your arse.




You’re gonna be a star

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Mark TWAIN.......................you too can become great..............



LBN-HISTORICAL COMMENTARY



By Mark Twain:




Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions.




Small people always do that, but the really great
make you feel that you, too, can become great.

Monday, May 31, 2010

sinon fuller to acquire CKX........owners of IDOL franchise.....ELVIS & MUHAMMAD ALI likeness & image.......



CKX Confirms Acquisition Offer From Simon Fuller

"American Idol" creator wants to take over parent company of show's producer, 19 Entertainment
By Wrap Staff
Published: May 28, 2010
CKX, parent company of 19 Entertainment, which produces "American Idol," confirmed Friday that it has received an acquisition proposal from a group of investors led by "Idol" creator Simon Fuller.


The offer is believed to be for about $600 million, according to the Hollywood Reporter.


In addition to "Idol," CKX owns the rights to the names, images and likenesses of
Elvis Presley and
Muhammad Ali, and also operates Graceland.
It also produces Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance."

The CKX board of directors is evaluating the proposal, "as well as other potential strategic alternatives," it said in a statement, has retained Gleacher & Company as its financial adviser and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz as legal adviser.

CKX also said, "There can be no assurance that it will enter into any agreement with respect to any transaction, or as to the timing or terms thereof, including price."


Fuller left 19 Entertainment, of which he was CEO and founder, in January.
In May, CKX founder-CEO Robert F.X. Sillerman resigned from the company to pursue other opportunities, including possibly buying CKX.


Fuller and partner Roger Jenkins, formerly of Barclays Capital, have amassed a $1 billion acquisitions fund, according to ABC News.


One Equity Partners, a private equity arm of JPMorgan Chase, also is eyeing CKX as a takeover target.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

mick "rolling stoned" jagger.............


LBN-MUSIC INSIDER:
***Mick Jagger -- hawking "Stones in Exile," a documentary about the making of the Rolling Stones' 1972 album, "Exile on Main Street" -- told reporters in Cannes:
"We were young, good-looking and stupid then.
Now we're just stupid."
The album was mostly recorded at Keith Richards' villa in the South of France -- where the Stones had fled Britain's crushing income tax -- in a hedonistic haze of heroin, pot and booze.
"Nixon was in the White House and Watergate was going on, but we didn't know about it until later because we were down there making this album," said the rubber-lipped rocker.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

AXL ROSE versus IRVING AZOFF



Axl Rose slams Irving Azoff in $5 million countersuit




Tue May 18, 2010 @ 12:08PM PST





By Eriq Gardner




EXCLUSIVE:



Axl Rose says his former manager tried to implement a scheme to force him to reunite with the original Guns N' Roses band members and, as part of the plot, failed to properly promote the "Chinese Democracy" album, lied about a prospective Van Halen super tour and mishandled the band's tour dates.




The claims are part of a bombshell countersuit filed yesterday against Irving Azoff's Front Line Management.



In March, Azoff sued Rose, claiming the rocker violated an oral agreement to pay 15% of earnings, or nearly $2 million, from a lucrative concert tour.




Not since the G'N'R song "Get in the Ring" has Rose struck back at a foe so forcefully, alleging antitrust concerns about Front Line's parent company, Ticketmaster, to drive home a major claim that his former manager is up to no good in the music business.



Azoff is CEO, director and majority shareholder of Front Line, whose roster of artists include the Eagles, Neil Diamond, Jimmy Buffett, Christina Aguilera and John Mayer.





In 2008, Front Line was acquired by Ticketmaster.




Rose claims that through Azoff's control of the "trifecta" of artist management, concert and touring promotion, and ticket sales, Azoff has been able to gain wide influence and power in the music industry.





Azoff allegedly decides what artists he wants to promote through favorable touring deals and uses his power to punish artists and harm their careers if they don't follow his orders.





When informed of the myriad allegations in the countersuit, Azoff's lawyer Howard King quipped to us: "He didn't accuse Irving of being on the grassy knoll in Dallas on November 22, 1963?"



The countersuit invokes the U.S. Justice Department's recent antitrust lawsuit that sought to stop a proposed merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation over concerns about the new entity having too much control over artists and venues.




Afterwards, Ticketmaster entered into a consent decree with government regulators to allow the merger to continue under certain operating provisions.




Axl's counter-complaint says that Azoff is violating the consent decree by coercing and bullying artists to do what he wants.




What Azoff wanted, the rocker says, was the reunion of Guns N' Roses.




To execute this, he would sabotage Rose and his new band so that Rose would have no option but to reunite.



According to the filing, "Upon realizing that he couldn't bully Rose and accomplish his scheme, Azoff resigned and abandoned Guns N' Roses on the eve of a major tour, filing suit for commissions he didn't earn and had no right to receive."




Further, Axl says the botched tour cost him money in production startup and rehearsal expenses.



Claiming breach of fiduciary duty, constructive fraud and breach of contract, the singer wants at least $5 million in damages.



The cross-complaint was filed by Skip Miller and Sasha Frid at L.A.'s Miller Barondess.