Vimeo has announced that a new cycle of three episodes of the web series High Maintenance will premiere exclusively on Vimeo on Demand on February 5, 2015–the second half of the series’ second season. Created by married couple Katja Blichfeld and Ben Sinclair, the series successfully launched Vimeo On Demand’s first foray into original programming.
The new episodes are available globally and have subtitles translated to German, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Hindi, and Japanese. High Maintenance centers around a cannabis dealer known simply as “The Guy” (Sinclair) who slips in and out of the lives of his clients–an eclectic array of Brooklynites, from the likes of a harried personal assistant buying weed for her boss to a misunderstood asexual magician.
In this new batch of episodes, “The Guy” is poised to deliver to a new set of clients, all who have vastly different motivations–or lack there of–for smoking weed.
Pricing for the series on Vimeo on Demand remains the same as the previous cycle of three episodes: to rent episodes individually, the cost is $1.99 or EUR 2.49. To buy all episodes the cost is $7.99 or EUR 6.49.
The thirteen episodes from Season 1 are available for free at HighMaintenance.tv.
Emmy Award-winning casting director Blichfeld (30 Rock), actor and editor Sinclair (Delocated, 30 Rock, The Big C, and the forthcoming film, The Nest) and manager Russell Gregory at Regarding Entertainment first debuted High Maintenance on Vimeo in late 2012.
A collaboration in every sense of the word, Blichfeld and Sinclair write, direct, and edit every episode. Taking the new medium of the “web series” to different heights, the two make every episode as long as it needs to be, with Vimeo providing them with the freedom to both experiment and perfect their special brand of short-form storytelling.
Google is blasted by UK watchdog for what it calls anti-competitive behavior through digital ads
Google was slammed Friday by U.K. regulators who say it's taking advantage of its dominance in digital advertising to thwart competition in Britain, ratcheting up pressure that the tech giant is facing on both sides of the Atlantic over its "ad tech" business practices.
Britain's Competition and Markets Authority said that the U.S. company gives preference to its own services to the detriment of online publishers and advertisers in Britain's 1.8 billion pound ($2.4 billion) digital ad market. The watchdog leveled its accusations after an investigation, and the findings could potentially lead to a fine worth billions of dollars or an order to change its behavior.
Google is a major player throughout the digital ad ecosystem, providing servers for publishers to manage ad space on their websites and apps, tools for advertisers and media agencies to buy display ads, and an exchange where both sides come together to buy and sell ads in real time at auctions.
"We've provisionally found that Google is using its market power to hinder competition when it comes to the ads people see on websites," the watchdog's interim executive director of enforcement, Juliette Enser, said in a press release.
The watchdog's charges, known as a statement of objections, arrive two years after it opened its investigation. Google's digital ad business is also the focus of a European Union antitrust investigation and a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit that's set to go to trial this month.
The CMA said that Google's "anti-competitive" conduct is ongoing, but the company disputed the allegations Friday.
"Google remains committed to creating value for our publisher and advertiser partners in this highly competitive sector," the company said in a prepared... Read More