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Hulu bids are in, if it sells then the next owner's identity may hinge on video rights
Take two of the sale of Hulu is approaching its inevitable end, as multiple sources report the final bids have come in. Currently the site is owned by Disney, Fox and Comcast, while reported interested buyers include DirecTV, Chernin Group / AT&T and Guggenheim Digital Media. Of the potential buyers, The Hollywood Reporter reports Guggenheim would be the one most likely to retain the site's "entreprenurial spirit," while DirecTV may want to use it both as a part of its satellite package and as a standalone business. Finally the Chernin Group is reportedly backed by AT&T, which may have goals similar to those of DirecTV. According to the Wall Street Journal, the site's current owners are considering how potential buyers will want to license content going forward as part of the bids, with potential restrictions on their top rated shows, or longer windows before content is available on Hulu. We'll have to wait and find out who had the best pitch before we move on to the next step -- deciding if whatever Hulu becomes under new ownership is still worth visiting.
FCC to dole out up to $300 million to help carriers expand service in rural areas
It seems like almost every day that we receive a press release announcing Verizon or AT&T is planning to expand its LTE coverage to three, five, eleven new markets. But in some remote pockets of the country, you'd be lucky to latch onto even a solid 3G signal. In a bid to make sure those folks in the boonies get their due, the Federal Communications Commission is establishing a fund to encourage carriers to roll out 3G and 4G service in sparser areas. All told, the agency plans to award up to $300 million to mobile operators, with funds going to the providers offering the lowest rates. The winners will be decided in a sealed, single-round auction, which opens June 27th and is set to close July 11th. As a condition for receiving the funds, carriers must agree to cover at least 75 percent of the road miles within a given census tract. While it's unclear at this early stage which mobile players will take the bait, the FCC's already signaled which parts of the country will be first in line for upgraded service -- namely, Rocky Mountain states like Utah and Idaho, along with Maine, Appalachia and upstate New York.
The sudden popularity of GDKP
We've been seeing this GDKP thing sneak up on the forums and elsewhere a lot lately, and while Scott has mentioned it (in a somewhat disparaging way, in fact), we haven't really taken a good look at it yet. So let's do so. GDKP stands for Gold DKP, which is kind of a mishmash of acronyms. DKP, or Dragon Kill Points, are a very popular way of determining loot division in a raid -- the concept dates back to earlier MMOs, and involves players earning points per boss kill that they can then spend on gear. We've talked about other DKP systems before. But rather than awarding loot based on arbitrary points, Gold DKP, as you may have guessed, instead gives loot to the player willing to pay the most gold... to the other players in the raid. The way it works is this: You go into an instance, say Naxx, and everyone knows ahead of time that it is a "GDKP run," or a "gold run," or a "cash run." You down the first boss, and Webbed Death drops. The master looter then takes bids of gold on the item (this can be done via public chat or via an addon), and whoever bids the most gold gets the item. The person who wins then pays that amount of gold (some raids have minimum bids of, say, 100g) to "the pot," and the raid moves on. Another boss drops, another item drops -- usually all items, including recipes and mats, are auctioned off -- and another high bid goes into "the pot." Then, at the end of the raid, the pot is evenly split among all members. Everybody who joined in on the raid gets an even share of the bidded gold, including people who got no items, or the Mr. Moneybags who won them all.
Children's Week Child's Play auction is live
Children's Week is here, and with it this year comes our friend Brigwyn's Child's Play auction. You can look through all of the available items in his on-site catalogue, or head on over to eBay and start bidding on whatever you like. All of the proceeds from the auction will go to help Penny Arcade's very worthy Child's Play charity, which goes to help put videogames in hospitals where sick children can play with them. Brigwyn himself has experience with their work (which he's written about over on his site), so he knows just what kind of good they can do.And of course, we'll point out our own contribution to the auction page -- we've donated a free guest spot on our podcast, the WoW Insider Show. If you've ever wanted to tell me in virtual person how wrong I am, or encourage Turpster's already oversize ego, or weigh in with us during the Meat of the Show, now's your chance. With your bid there, not only are you helping children who are going through some terrible experiences, but you might also get the chance to speak your mind about World of Warcraft right alongside us on the show. Oh, and we'll poke around our WoW Insider prize closet for some other fun stuff for you, too -- maybe loot cards, a Turpster drawing, or whatever else we've got sitting around.So please bid -- on our item or any of the others. There's also some loot cards, some items from BRK and other well-known bloggers from around the community, and lots of extremely fun one-of-a-kind WoW items (Sure, this original signed art by Cadistra of WoW, Eh? is nice, but a Hooter's t-shirt? That's Epic if we ever saw it). The bids are coming in already, so please get yours in there ASAP!
