Interesting move, especially as it reltes to "Sidewalk".
Don't know what "Sidewalk"? I wouldn't have recognised it
from it's name eithre, but we've heard of it before.
I guess with Microsoft coming to Cambridge it makes
it slightly more likely that the "several other [cities] abroad"
might include Cambridge
Quoted (in full) from: http://my.excite.com/News/970815/09.TECH-MICROSOFT.html
Microsoft Axes Film Web Site, Lays Off Staffers
By John Voland
HOLLYWOOD - Microsoft is shutting down its popular Cinemania website and
has terminated more than half of the staffers who worked on the project,
according to the entertainment publication Variety.
Even the site's marquee name, Entertainment Tonight" film critic Leonard
Maltin, was among those pink-slipped by Microsoft Network (MSN)
executives late Thursday. Especially hard hit by the layoffs were
Cinemania's editorial and marketing staffs, which had been beefed up
with lavish expenditure and considerable fanfare less than a year ago.
The move surprised veteran Web watchers, who praised the site and
Microsoft's now former commitment to it. Cinemania had competed against
the likes of the Internet Movie Database and the All-Movie Guide in
terms of its comprehensiveness, while also carving out a niche as a
place for softer news and features about the industry.
Cinemania employees who survived the putsch will be shuffled off to
duties on Sidewalk, another high-profile Microsoft Network site-system,
staffers said Thursday.
In a statement from its Redmond, Wash., headquarters, Microsoft's
spokespeople would not comment on the retirement of Cinemania, but said
the switching of employees over to Sidewalk reflected shifts in the
(Microsoft Interactive Media Group's) business strategy and...staffing
needs" within the division.
The Sidewalk business...is making some changes in staffing in order to
better meet consumer needs," continued the official company statement.
Cinemania editor Jim Emerson, former lead film critic of the Orange
County Register, deputy editor Chris Gyella and most management folk
will be reassigned elsewhere within Microsoft. The exact timetable of
the disappearance of the Cinemania site is apparently still under
discussion, with an immediate disappearance being the least likely
scenario.
There was no immediate word from either MSN or Microsoft whether the
company would continue publishing Cinemania as a stand-alone CD-ROM
product minus its Internet-based monthly updates.
Staffers contacted Thursday said no columns or features would feature in
any future metamorphosis of Cinemania, and the site's exhaustive review
and information databases would likely be folded into the central (read:
national) portions of Sidewalk.
Sidewalk, hosted on MSN and featuring a number of local entertainment
and access guides connected to a central informational backbone, is a
major priority for MSN and for Microsoft generally. The software giant
is intent on establishing its Sidewalk franchise for the 20 largest
cities in America -- and several others abroad -- by the end of 1998,
thereby seizing a growth market for Internet marketing: the local what
to do" guides.
-- Jonathan Whiteland jonathan@home.cam.net.uk http://www.cam.net.uk/home/jonathan/ jonathan@ytko.co.uk http://www.ytko.co.uk/
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