The 11th Hour Dispatch — Friday, September 21, 2018
YOUNG MONEY
Adobe has announced that it’s acquiring the cloud-based marketing platform Marketo for a whopping $4.75 billion. The platform will be integrated into Adobe’s Experience Cloud to give it some major firepower against the big, bad Microsoft and Oracle. The former email marketing service was taken private by Vista Equity Partners Management LLC for $1.8 billion in 2016 and reportedly brought in $321 million in revenue last year. As part of the deal, Marketo’s CEO Steve Lucas will also join Adobe’s leadership team. The deal is expected to close in Q4. This purchase puts Adobe one step closer to complete domination of the creative and marketing space.
BINGE WATCH
Big day in casting for Netflix. The streaming service has added Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt to a yet-to-be titled superhero movie, as well as greenlit No Good Nick, a multi-cam comedy starring Sean Astin and the queen of the multi-cam Melissa Joan Hart. Foxx and Gordon-Levitt’s film is being executive produced by Narcos’ Eric Newman and I, Tonya’s Bryan Unkeless under their joint company Screen Arcade. The duo also executive produced Netflix’s hit thriller Bright, which stars Will Smith. As for No Good Nick, Joan Hart and Astin star as parents that bring a 13-year-old named Nick, played by Siena Agudong, into their family without realizing she’s a “street-smart con artist” out to ruin their lives. The series is executive produced and created by David H. Steinberg and Keetgi Kogan and produced by Andy Fickman, the director of the critically acclaimed Paul Blart: Mall Copy 2 and the best movie of all time, She’s The Man.
BIG BUSINESS
Uh oh. China has banned Twitch. Both the website and app of the popular livestreaming platform beloved by gamers is now unavailable in the country. When Chinese users noticed it missing earlier this week, Twitch’s team made sure that people knew the sudden move was from the government and not by choice of Twitch. They seemed to not know why the Chinese had made the switch so quickly. This means fans of the Chinese Overwatch League team, The Shanghai Dragons, won’t be able to view their upcoming games on Twitch. The team’s streams will likely be moved to ZhanQi TV or Panda TV, neither of which have the interactive elements of Twitch. And if you’re screaming “YOUTUBE!! WHAT ABOUT YOUTUBE??!!” First, calm the heck down. Second, YouTube has been banned in China for almost a decade, so it’s pretty much out of the question. I would guess there’s a business motive for the Chinese behind this decision, but only time will tell.
NOTHIN’ BUT ‘NET
The first episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was filmed 51 years ago.
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