The BBC is often thought of as an online exemplar. In fact, the big digital ideology of the the last several years has been making linear conventional broadcast material available on-demand, live and through multiple internet devices, principally through the iPlayer service.
But George Entwhistle, in a keynote delivered to staff as he replaced New York Times-bound Mark Thompson on Tuesday, said this practise has come to its natural limit; instead, he said, the BBC must now create content conceived for interactive platforms, not re-interpreted from older media.
See the full story here; http://paidcontent.org/2012/09/18/new-bbc-chief-vows-to-re-invent-content-not-just-re-purpose-it/?utm_source=General+Users&utm_campaign=400d9c831f-c%3Amed+d%3A09-19&utm_medium=email
Hollywood is becoming a hotspot for start-ups. "Incubators and accelerators are popping up everywhere. Venture capitalists are becoming frequent fliers at LAX. Celebrities are stamping their names on new companies. And TV industry executives are quitting their jobs to become entrepreneurs," according to Business Insider.
See the full story here: http://www.businessinsider.com/los-angeles-tech-startups-2012-9
The interactive format — made possible by Fourth Wall’s Rides.tv platform, which augments the first seven-minute episode of The Gamblers with text messages, bonus scenes and actual phone calls from the chatty narrators — gives viewers a fun way to play along with a show using some pretty cool technology. ...
Much of the visual magic in the The Gamblers’ first episode, titled “The Ledge,” comes from the virtual stage used to film the lovers’ lofty crisis. Fourth Wall set up shop on the Universal Studios lot and usedLightcraft Technology’s Previzion system to create a green-screen environment where the actors could see the virtual backgrounds — basically, the city surrounding the fake rooftop — during live playback shots. (Check out some behind-the-scenes action from the making of “The Ledge” in the clip above.)
“The chief aspect of it is that it’s got camera-tracking technology, so that a computer knows where your camera is on the stage and it’s therefore able to put it into a three-dimensional model inside the computer,” said Heinrichs. ...
See the full story with video here: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/08/virtual-stage-the-gamblers/
The pitch: Consumers will be able to use M-Go to purchase movies (and eventually TV shows, and perhaps, one day, music) and watch them wherever they’d like — on connected TVs, PCs and mobile phones.
See the full story here: http://allthingsd.com/20120911/the-cloud-is-getting-crowded-hollywood-lines-up-behind-m-go-another-digital-storefront/
[Philip Lelyveld comment: really good consumer behavior data.]
A NEW ERA 3
TODAY’S HABITS 4
WILLINGNESS TO PAY 6
CORD CUTTERS AND CORD SHAVERS 8
GOING LEGAL 10
THE FUTURE 11
METHODOLOGY 11
Download the full report here: http://www.ericsson.com/res/docs/2012/consumerlab/tv_video_consumerlab_report.pdf
[Philip Lelyveld comment: Ze is an amazing storyteller. I hope this doesn't dilute his energy too much.]
BuzzFeed today made its second significant step toward business growth this week, with the announcement that Ze Frank has joined the social news organization as executive vice president of video effective immediately.
Technically, BuzzFeed acquired Ze Frank Games for an undisclosed sum. In practice, it means the highly regarded web video pioneer will build and staff a studio specifically for the creation of content “native to the social web,” as BuzzFeed phrased it, improving BuzzFeed’s ability to partner on creating sponsored content and boosting its power to drive viral dissemination.
Frank said, “There is a great opportunity to bring BuzzFeed’s philosophy to the wild west of online video and I’m excited to be putting together a talented team in LA to make that happen.”
See the full story here: http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2012/09/14/ze-frank-joins-buzzfeed-will-establish-los-angeles-studio
[Philip Lelyveld comment; Internal competitions based on company patent portfolios could generate new business ideas and be a great employee motivation activity.]
Some crowdsourcing competitions, like the X-Prize, ask people to come up with technological solutions to a problem. Marblar, a startup launching this month, is doing it backward—asking people to come up with problems that a given technology could solve.
Cofounded by three PhD students in the U.K., Marblar is a platform that aims to help universities commercialize new inventions and resurrect dusty old patents. The company is working with about half a dozen U.K. research institutions, such as the Medical Research Council and Imperial College London, to seed its website with discoveries. These range from a novel form of foam to a new kind of oxygen sensor to a probe that can drill into hard surfaces in new ways.
See the full story here: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/429171/can-crowdsourcing-bring-unused-patents-back-from/
Dolby Laboratories is making inroads into changing the way films sound at the megaplex, with 20th Century Fox joining Disney as the second major studio to support the company's new Atmos audio platform.
"Taken 2" and "Chasing Mavericks" will be the first Fox pics to have their soundtracks engineered for Atmos. Studio also will outfit its Zanuck Theater post-production facility with Dolby Atmos tools. It typically costs $30,000 to retrofit an existing facility with the technology.The Fox deal is significant for Dolby as a sound system battle is quietly tuning up inside the world's movie theaters. Dolby hopes the Atmos rollout will help it control a larger share of the in-theater surround sound biz as it competes with rivals like Barco, Immsound, Iosono and Illusonic 3D, which are also promoting new systems to exhibs, especially as more theaters make the transition to digital projection.
Read the full story here: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118059051
According to Gamer Segmentation 2012: The New Faces of Gamers, the latest report from leading market research company, The NPD Group, there are an estimated 211.5 million gamers in the U.S. that play video games, a 5 percent decline, or loss of close to 12 million gamers, when compared to 2011.
Of the six gamer segments in the report, only Mobile Gamers and Digital Gamers saw increases in the number of gamers when compared to 2011, with Mobile Gamers up 9 percentage points to 22 percent and Digital Gamers up 4 percentage points to 16 percent. All other gamer segments, which include Core Gamers, Family+Kid Gamers, Light PC Gamers, and Avid PC Gamers, experienced declines, with Family+Kid gamers experiencing the most significant decline of an estimated 17.4 million gamers.
"Given the long lifecycles of the current consoles and the increasing installed base of smartphones and tablets, it's not surprising to see a slight decline in the Core Gamer segment," said Anita Frazier, industry analyst, The NPD Group. "It's the revenue contribution of the Core Gamer segment that continues to outpace all other segments, and remains vital to the future of the industry."
Read the full story here: https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/news/pressreleases/pr_120905/
RIP Bob Lambert
- Chrm Emeritus, USC Entertainment Technology Center
- Former SVP Worldwide Technology Strategy, Disney
- Co-Chrm, Digital Cinema Initiative
- Sponsor/Advisor to the AFI and the TED conference
- Producer, CityWorks (X)po
- and much more
See a recent bio of Bob here: http://www.cityworksxpo.com/main/speakers-performers/bob-lambert