philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Maker Studios Buys Blip, and a Home Outside of YouTube

Maker Studios, one of the biggest YouTube networks, is buying Blip, a video maker and distributor.

Blip officials informed their staff of the deal this morning, and it is expected to close in early September.

The most important takeaway, for now, is that the deal gives Maker a home outside of YouTube for its content.

Meanwhile, Maker, which has raised $44 million to date, including a $36 million round led by Time Warner last year, may get another cash infusion from investors in the coming months.

See the full story here: http://allthingsd.com/20130821/maker-studios-buys-blip-and-a-home-outside-of-youtube/?curator=MediaREDEF

ALGORITHMS: NEW CONTENT CREATORS ARE REDEFINING FAIR USE

Algorithms are acting more like content creators rather than an index of online information. If a users searches for a topic, facts and images that Google scrapes from websites fall under fair use.

“What if the researchers at these companies could improve their bots enough for the algorithms to make intelligent decisions about fair use,” questions Wired. “If their systems can organize the Web and drive cars, surely they are capable of shouldering some of the responsibility for making smart decisions about fair use.”

See the full story here: http://www.etcentric.org/algorithms-new-content-creators-are-redefining-fair-use/

Vidcon 2013: What this year says about what’s happening on YouTube

"I sat in on one session, “How Much Am I Worth: Understanding YouTube Monetization and Determining Your Channel’s Value,” which was presented by YouTube partner product manager Andy Stack.

And thanks to Stack, I got a thorough education on what YouTube creators need to know about specific advertising terms like CPM and RPM, and what creators should be paying attention to in their interactions with the platform and advertisers."

Territories are emerging

Last year, YouTube talent companies like Fullscreen and Maker Studios were definitely a presence, but in the ensuing twelve months these companies have grown much larger and more established. It’s early to say, but there’s a new air of competition emerging. A year from now, we may see some real fences spring up.

Read the full story here: http://gigaom.com/2013/08/06/vidcon-2013-what-this-year-says-about-whats-happening-on-youtube/?utm_source=General+Users&utm_campaign=3ea5281b79-c%3Amed+d%3A08-09&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1dd83065c6-3ea5281b79-99147229

The Personal Television Revolution Is Horrifying — And Brilliant

It’s right and healthy that members of a family or other group indulge their own preferences. But the balance between individualism and communalism seems off, particularly in households saturated with mobile devices and digital media (which these days is a huge chunk of them).

I thought — hoped, really — that I was worrying too much about new technology, so I called Patricia Greenfield, Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. I asked: Do tech-savvy people in healthy relationships (like, say, me) really need to worry that customized media and mobile devices will undermine our connections with others?

“I think you should worry,” Greenfield told me.

As techniques to distribute and personalize television proliferate, then, expect to see a parallel rise in coping mechanisms. The systems we create to replace the emotional effects of communal television should be at least as interesting as the technology that disrupted family TV in the first place.

Read the full story here: http://www.wired.com/business/2013/08/personal-television-horror/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wiredbusinessblog+%28Wired%3A+Blog+-+Wired+Business%29&curator=MediaREDEF

The short story of Longreads, according to founder Mark Armstrong

“The experience of reading online is getting easier—thanks to phones, tablets and “save for later”—and social recommendation is making it easier to find stories from both large and small publishers,” Armstrong said. “The question now, of course, is who pays for them.” He says that the Longreads Membership is “also a way to pay writers and publishers for their work.” And we should expect to hear more about this in coming months.

Read the full story here: http://gigaom.com/2013/08/05/the-short-story-of-longreads-according-to-founder-mark-armstrong/?utm_source=General+Users&utm_campaign=d59660dff9-c%3Amed+d%3A08-06&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1dd83065c6-d59660dff9-99147229

Nielsen says it has linked Twitter chatter with TV ratings

[Philip Lelyveld comment: this must work best when the program demo matches the twitter demo.]

Media measurement firm Nielsen says it has proved for the first time, with statistical rigor,  that there is a correlation between a show's ratings and the magnitude of its Twitter buzz.

In the new study, Nielsen researchers analyzed a total of 221 episodes. The volume of tweets caused statistically significant changes to live TV ratings for 29 percent of the episodes, Nielsen said, without quantifying the degree of Twitter's influence on ratings.

Read the full story here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/technology/chi-nielsen-says-it-has-linked-twitter-chatter-with-tv-ratings-20130806,0,6480853.story?utm_source=2nd+Screen+Authority&utm_campaign=a1e8fb8b77-my_google_analytics_key&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_41ed43776d-a1e8fb8b77-87094753

3D images generated from single lens

The key, the researchers found, is to infer the angle of the light at each pixel, rather than directly measuring it (which standard image sensors and film would not be able to do). The team's solution is to take two images from the same camera position but focused at different depths. The slight differences between these two images provide enough information for a computer to mathematically create a brand-new image as if the camera had been moved to one side.

The researchers are calling their computational method "light-field moment imaging" - not to be confused with "light field cameras" (like the Lytro), which achieve similar effects using high-end hardware rather than computational processing.

Importantly, the technique offers a new and very accessible way to create 3D images of translucent materials, such as biological tissues.

See the full story here: http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20130706081125data_trunc_sys.shtml

Future of Cable Might Not Include TV

[Philip Lelyveld comment: 10 years ago some of us at the Studios told the cable industry strat planners that, rather than think of the term 'dumb pipe' as pejorative, consider embracing it and turning 'best dumb pipe' into your core competency.  Maybe that time has finally arrived.]

Predicting that transmission of TV will move to the Internet eventually, Cablevision Systems Corp. CVC -0.46% Chief Executive James Dolan says "there could come a day" when his company stops offering television service, making broadband its primary offering.

His comments may be the first public acknowledgment by a cable CEO of the possibility of such a shift, long speculated about by analysts. It comes amid growing tensions between cable operators and channel owners over rising programming costs, highlighted Friday night when Time Warner Cable Inc. dropped CBS from its channel lineup TWC -0.40% in major markets such as New York and Los Angeles.

If cable operators drop TV service, charging only for broadband, channel owners would have to sell directly to the public or through Web outlets.

Read the full story here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323420604578647961424594702.html

Stanford privacy advocate gives up on ‘Do Not Track’ group

[Philip Lelyveld comment; sometime the market cannot supply solutions.]

This week, Mayer resigned in exasperation after concluding that 10 in-person meetings and 78 conference calls over nearly two years had achieved precisely nothing. In his good-bye email, he wrote:

“We do not have a credible timetable—and we’ve just adjourned for a month. We do not have a definitive base text. We do not have straightforward guidelines on what amendments are allowed… This is not process: this is the absence of process. Given the lack of a viable path to consensus, I can no longer justify the substantial time, travel, and effort associated with continuing in the Working Group.”

The slow process described by Mayer can be seen as a tactical victory for digital advertising industry groups, which oppose efforts to limit the data collection that fuels their business.

Read the full story here: http://gigaom.com/2013/08/01/stanford-privacy-advocate-gives-up-on-do-not-track-group/?utm_source=General+Users&utm_campaign=bbcbb0f475-c%3Amed+d%3A08-05&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1dd83065c6-bbcbb0f475-99147229

Esri Launches New Developer Accounts

Redlands-based mapping software developer Esri is ramping up its efforts to reach out to third party software developers, saying Friday that it has launched a new, free developer subscription for its web, mobile, and online tools and services.

Read the full story here: http://www.socaltech.com/esri_launches_new_developer_accounts/s-0050681.html