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Meet the company behind the Tupac Shakur hologram

Shares of the publicly traded Domain Media Group are skyrocketing on the discovery that the company was behind the  the late rapper Tupac Shakur's hologram performing at Coachella Music Festival over the weekend.

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Chris Pizzello/AP
Dr. Dre, left, and Snoop Dogg perform onstage during their headlining set on the first weekend of the 2012 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, Sunday, April 15, 2012, in Indio, Calif. A hologram of late rapper Tupac Shakur joined the pair onstage in the festival's most talked about performance.

Did you see that thing at the Coachella Music Festival this weekend where they "brought Tupac back to life" as a hologram to perform alongside Dre and Snoop?  It was pretty sick.  Now everyone is pondering the possibilities of returning the likes of Kurt Cobain, Bob Marley, Elvis and others back to the stage using this technology.  It's already been announced that a regular Tupac tour is being contemplated because of the amazing and viral response to the performance.

It turns out there's a public company behind the whole thing, it's called Domain Media Group, the ticker is $DDMG.  Domain shares went banoodles this week when it was discovered that they were behind the technology itself.

Wall Street Cheat Sheet has the story...

For Tupac’s return, Digital Domain used a technique first created in 1862, in which an image is bounced off of the ground onto an invisible screen. Although Tupac’s image was not a true hologram, the performance was very eye-catching and the video went viral in a matter of hours. Furthermore, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that  Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg representatives plan to discuss logistics for a tour involving the two performers and the virtual Tupac...

The possibilities of more performances from virtual Tupac or even other deceased celebrities like Elvis sent shares of Digital Domain surging 16.5 percent on Tuesday. Before the virtual Tupac sensation, the Florida based company’s average three-month trading volume was 24,000 shares. On Tuesday, volume surged to over 764,000 shares.

DDMG did $98 million in revenues last year and lost $140 million.  I haven't done more than glance at the stock so far, but I was way early on $IMAX, building my first position in the stock in 2004 when they first started converting existing films like Batman Begins to the 70mm format and retrofitting old theaters for the experience.

So I'm curious...

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