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Hollywood is finally embracing day-and-date film releases.
Yesterday, Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeffrey Bewkes said that Warner Bros. plans to experiment with VOD releases day-and-date with DVD later this year. And now this morning, Apple (AAPL) announced that a number of major and independent movie studios have agreed to make their films available on iTunes day-and-date [...]

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Hollywood has finally begun sniffing at the long tail.
Paramount Pictures (VIA) and application developer FanRocket this week debuted a new service for Facebook users that will enable them to send each other movie clips. A combination media player and clip library, the service called VooZoo aims to exploit the Hey-Remember-That-Funny-Scene-From-”Nacho Libre” phenomenon by providing users [...]

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Reports of HD DVD’s death may have been exaggerated, but reports of its fast-declining health have not.
Though Paramount Pictures has denied reports that it plans to abandon the next-generation DVD format, news of an escape clause in its HD DVD contract allowing it to release films on Blu-ray has the industry wondering aloud about [...]

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Viacom has a new online advertising partner and–big surprise–it’s not Google. It’s Microsoft.

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Odd to think that a 64-minute foray into excrement and emesis might be a defining moment in Hollywood’s transition to digital distribution. But it could.
Paramount Pictures plans to debut “Jackass 2.5,” the third installment of the “Jackass” movies, online, skipping the multiplexes entirely. “2.5” will launch Dec. 19 on Blockbuster’s new online property, Movielink, where [...]

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Note: John Paczkowski is on vacation and won’t be writing or posting videos until he returns Monday, Aug. 27. To keep you abreast of tech news while he’s away, we’re compiling a daily digest of 10 must-read tech stories. We’re calling it the Tech 10 and it appears here.

1. Although they made no jokes about their secret marriage, as did Apple’s Steve Jobs when he appeared with Microsoft’s Bill Gates at D5 in May, the CEO schmoozefest between Steve Ballmer of Microsoft and John Chambers of Cisco today in New York City yielded news of increased cooperation between the two tech giants, according to eWeek. Ballmer also deflected questions from moderator Charlie Rose about whether Microsoft was contemplating acquiring Yahoo, writes Elizabeth Montalbano of IDG News Service.
2. Adobe’s Media Player isn’t quite ready for show time: the eagerly awaited player won’t be fully released until next year. In an exclusive, Beet.TV’s Andy Plesser gets the word from an Adobe spokesman and posts a video interview with Adobe’s Chris Hock, head of its Flash media group.

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From top to bottom, Blockbuster is deliberately and willfully infringing on our patented methods. Netflix invented a 100 percent better mousetrap that Blockbuster copied.
- Netflix spokesperson Steve Swasey, April 5, 2006
Apparently, Blockbuster isn’t as hopelessly tethered to its VHS rental-business past as you might think. Yesterday, the video-rental retailer acquired studio-owned movie download [...]

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