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Sonos, Beats Music Make Super Bowl Commercial Debuts

Two, Southern California startups -- whole home music system developer Sonos, and streaming music service Beats Music -- made their Super Bowl commercial debuts yesterday, an unusual occasion for the startup community here. A 30-second, Super Bowl commercial spot this year cost $4 million, not including the cost of creating and filming a commercial. Sonos featured an ad showing the concept of its whole home music system, and Beats Music's ad featured comedienne Ellen DeGeneres decked out as a modern day Goldilocks. The two were not the only, Southern California companies with links to the high tech community here with ads, however -- among the most memorable of spots was a mini Seinfeld episode from Culver City-based Crackle, the online movie and TV streaming site owned by Sony. Intuit--which develops its online Turbotax software in San Diego--also featured an ad trying to convince viewers to skip the game and do their taxes instead. If you missed the commercials, Los Angeles-based streaming television site Hulu has all of the commercials posted in its Hulu AdZone. Crackle's commercial included a link to a dedicated site featuring a longer version of Crackle's mini-Seinfeld episode.