Way ahead of
South Carolina
In “the Hollywood of the East Coast,” a.k.a. North Carolina, spending by film and television companies exceeded $160 million in 2007, a 61 percent increase from 2006. North Carolina’s budget for 2008 includes changes meant to make stars shine even brighter. Film companies will no longer have to pay the state’s nearly 7 percent corporate income tax for expenses. The bad news is that N.C. is not seeing as much revenue as it did in the past, specifically 2003 and 2004. —Caitlin Baker
Thumbs Down
No more thumbs for Roger Ebert. He announced his departure from At the Movies with Ebert and Roeper on July 21, one day after Richard Roeper said he was quitting. It marks the end of one of the longest running shows in television history. Roeper, who joined the show in 2000 after Gene Siskel’s death, said disagreements during contract negotiations were his reason for leaving. Ebert, who is battling cancer, has been unable to appear on the show after a 2006 mouth surgery that left him unable to speak. He used to work behind the scenes for At the Movies, but that’s no more, too. Ebert is planning to create a new show for TV, and he’s taking his copyrighted two thumbs rating system with him. —Alison Sher
Facebook Facelift
The social networking war continues as Facebook unveiled another redesign July 28, which includes a new expanded “wall.” For all of you Facebook addicts out there, this new wall now has elements previously found on the mini-feed, as well as comment boxes, etc. The Associated Press reported that Facebook has been warning users of the new change since May, and has been slowly adding new features so that users will be able to adapt more easily. —Caitlin Baker
So Cuil
Anna Patterson, her husband Tom Costello, and other Google alums have used their insider knowledge to create a competing search engine called Cuil (pronounced “cool”). About $33 million has already been invested into the company. With 120 billion pages, Costello says Cuil’s search capabilities are the most comprehensive on the web. We’re still pretty skeptical. It’s gonna be damn near impossible to deprogram our fingers to type in a site other than Google whenever we need to look up something. —Alison Sher
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