Fortune on Pixar and Anime; Google snags an entertainment exec

Fortune has a great set of stories (you'll have to be a subscriber) about new media and entertainment ideas, including a piece headlined Anime Explosion and another about Ed Catmull, the founder and president of Pixar, whom Steve Jobs calls "our quiet Beatle."

And Google has added Ann Mather to its board of directors, according to this piece from MediaPost. Mather has been an exec at Pixar, Village Roadshow Pictures, and Disney. Wendy Davis writes:

Could her appointment signal that Google's serious about forging alliances with the entertainment world? When it comes to expanding beyond search, Google has many options, but one that has surfaced repeatedly in recent months has been the possibility of distributing video.

CBS, in talks with Google about possible distribution deals, already made streams of the UPN show "Everybody Hates Chris" available through Google. The search giant also expressed interest in acquiring a piece of AOL, which has a trove of video content at the ready.

While Google has done well for itself with search ads, many industry observers are waiting to see what the company will do for a second act. Given Mather's appointment, a move into broadband video now seems like one of the likelier possibilities.