Hollywood, Silicon Valley and AT & T;?

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Hollywood and Silicon Valley have something of a Mars/Venus problem: the two sides are talking but they don’t speak each other’s language. A new venture involving a phone company may just add Pluto into the mix, the New York Times reports.


On Monday, the William Morris Agency, the Hollywood talent shop, will announce that it is teaming up with the Silicon Valley venture capital firms Accel Partners and Venrock to invest in digital media start-up companies based in Southern California. What makes the combination unusual, though, is the addition of AT & T; as a limited partner.


While there has been a spate of deals recently as entertainment and technology companies try to capitalize on their shared interest in new media, many people view wireless carriers as too controlling, particularly when it comes to offering new software and content on today’s more sophisticated, Web-friendly cellphones.


This deal is an indication of how quickly online and mobile entertainment are transforming the wireless carriers and perhaps a recognition , on all sides , that a failure to act now could leave the partners vulnerable to interlopers who seek to upend their traditional businesses.


Susan Johnson, a senior vice president for business development at AT & T;, who will be working with the alliance, said the convergence of media and technology was “as much an opportunity as a threat.”


Hollywood and Silicon Valley executives have had an uneasy relationship since the Internet boom of the late 1990s, when the promise of a new-media revolution failed to materialize. Scores of actors and directors piled into private jets to make the 300-mile pilgrimage from Los Angeles to Palo Alto, but they were unsuccessful at creating properties for the Web.



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