jatiN mahindrA doT coM

Yahoo Makes Strides In Entertainment Search

If Yahoo has its way, it’ll soon be the place to go for information about movies, TV shows, and the celebrities who star in them.  Yahoo announced several upgrades to its search engine this morning, and they’re all meant to make entertainment-related queries turn up much better results. A Yahoo representative told WebProNews, "Today Yahoo! Search is unveiling new ways for people...

MySpace Launches New Games Site

MySpace launched a new gaming experience at myspace.com/games today. The company says it empowers developers with new tools, analytics, and opportunities for driving usage and revenue. "Gaming is core to the overall entertainment value of MySpace; we are replicating our success from MySpace Music for this next round of platform improvements," a representative for MySpace tells WebProNews....

Actor Corey Haim Reported Dead

Actor Corey Haim, best known for roles in movies like the Lost Boys, License to Drive, and many others (a number of which also featured Corey Feldman), has reportedly been found dead of an apparent drug overdose.  >>> You can leave your condolences on FamousDead.com. The LA Times reports: The Los Angeles Police Department said Haim, 38, was pronounced dead after 3 a.m. at a Burbank hospital....

Missing Growing Pains Actor Andrew Koenig’s Body Found

Update: Tragically, Koenig’s body was found in Stanley Park in Vancouver. His father Walter Koenig reportedly said in a press conference, "Our son took his own life. He was obviously in a lot of pain." More here. Original Article: Andrew Koenig, an actor best known for portraying Kirk Cameron’s best friend "Boner" on the 80s sitcom Growing Pains has gone missing, and...

Animators Collaborate on Facebook All the Way to the Theaters

Last fall, Mass Animation, which calls itself the largest global animation collaboration ever, posted an invitation on Facebook for artists around the world to collaborate on the making of an animated short film. This film is now getting a theatrical release this week with Columbia Pictures’ Planet 51 release. It’s called "Live Music." "When artists arrived at Mass Animation’s...

Watch: Will Ferrell and Adam McKay Talk YouTube

YouTube has partnered with Funny or Die, the video comedy site founded by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, the duo behind such cinematic comedy gems as Anchorman and Talladega Nights. There is now a Funny or Die YouTube channel, and YouTube is giving it special promotion on the site’s home page. Ferrell and McKay have uploaded the following video talking about YouTube: Funny or Die gets...

Paramount Follows Up “Paranormal” Marketing with More Social Fun

Paramount, the company behind the distribution of the smash-hit Paranormal Activity is now showcasing a new film-meets-social media project. Paramount’s Paramount Digital Entertainment (PDE) division has teamed up with Adobe, MySpace, Mountain Dew, and Blockbuster on the production, distribution, and marketing on a new "supernatural thriller" web series called Circle of Eight. We were...

Online Marketing Leads Paranormal Activity to Wide Release

Paranormal Activity is a movie that has made its way to a wide theatrical release this weekend as a result of some clever online marketing. The movie is described as a "Blair Witch"- type film, in that it is told through fake "realistic" video footage. This is a cliché that has been used numerous times in the horror genre. The film boasts some pretty bold quotes from some...

Dreamworks Bans Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz from Twitter

Something about celebrities combined with Twitter is just a magnet for headlines and mass media attention. Perhaps it is because our society has an unhealthy obsession with celebrities, and Twitter (and really just social media in general) is turning the web as we know it into a never-ending "stream" of information. It should be no surprise that when big stars like Cameron Diaz and Mike...

Yahoo Expands “It’s Y!ou” Campaign With User Yodeling

As part of Yahoo’s big "It’s Y!ou!" campaign, the company has started an initiative to let users contribute to the famous "Yahoo! Yodel". Yahoo has opened up what it calls the Yodel Studio. The aim is for people to personalize and reinterpret the yodel. "The foundation of the ‘It’s Y!ou’ campaign is about making the web more personally relevant...

Online Video Mocked by Doogie Howser at Emmys

The 61st Primetime Emmy Awards (aka: The Emmys) were on last night on CBS, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, formerly of Doogie Howser M.D., and currently of How I Met Your Mother. During the show, "NPH" appeared as "Dr. Horrible" (not a reference to Doogie, but to a blogger he portrays on a web show), and made fun of online video and the notion that it could ever replace television....

Justin.tv Steps Up Copyright Protection Efforts

Justin.tv has just announced a new copyright protection process it is initiating. The site is working with Vobile to filter content on Justin.tv using their database of content. "As of this week we’ve begun fingerprinting all saved clips on Justin.tv and scanning them against Vobile’s content database," Justin.tv VP Marketing Evan Solomon tells WebProNews. "Channels with...

Twitter Documentary in the Works

You’ve probably heard that there is a Facebook movie in the works, but now it appears that there is a one on the way for Twitter as well. However, where the Facebook film will be a mainstream hollywood-type movie with actors, the Twitter movie will be a documentary, and will be available for free to watch online under a creative commons license. According to a social media release, Siok Siok...