Recent Readings and Observations

One of the books in the Bibliography is THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR by Andrew Keen. It posits that an unintended consequence of Internet Media is the undermining of professional journalism and a general dumbing-down of public opinion. Since the Internet is the great equalizer whereby any blogger can sound be heard and command a pseudo credibility, professional journalists are devalued. You can’t appreciate their research, fact checking, adherence to Journalistic standards. Every sound bite and web page and podcast can have equivalent distribution. Another proponent of this point of view is Chris Hedges. This recent article underscores the anti-intellectual effect of the Internet and the demise of professional news journalism; Bad Days for Newsrooms—and Democracy . I tend to agree. It is perilous to have so few controlling so much of our news, and to have so many reading and contemplating so little. What do you think?

Also in this vein is the work of Professor Mark Bauerlein and his book THE DUMBEST GENERATION. He argues that “screen intelligence” is no replacement for traditional literacy. Pervasive use of social networks, superficial blogging (mia culpa!), short texting and the obsession over keeping constantly attached to your friends and peers, comes at the price of focused concentration and deeper thought. He sites a number of statistics supporting is assertion that the overall level of younger intellectual achievement is on the decline. A review of the book is published in the LA Times and of course you can find it on Amazon.

Rock 'em, sock 'em TV providers
On the digital media consumer front, the Chicago Tribune had a great piece comparing Comcast Digital CATV with AT&Ts U-Verse Broadband IP TV service. Comcast still came out the winner although U-Verse posed a formidable challenge. The article diplomatically concludes “With prices for HDTVs gradually coming down, Comcast is the better choice for homes with more than one HDTV” . My personal opinion is that eventually AT&T will be able to offer more feature and a better overall bundle with your telephone services. Comcast is better at organizing and aggregating programming but AT&T will hire and develop that expertise. The final battle will be pricing and customer service. The consumer wins. U-Verse is still years away from having the reach of Comcast.

Thanks to Michael Fitzgerald for this link about brain - computer interfaces. I was privy to some EMOTIV UI work being done by a local Interactive shop last year. Sphere: Related Content

Hello From U of I at Champaign Urbana: IL. Ventures

Today I am in Urbana / Champaign IL. at the Univ. of IL. at the offices of Illinois Ventures.
Illinois Ventures is a unique VC focused on R&D Spinouts from the University if Illinois system. They have a great portfolio of companies in biotech and information tech. I met with Sr. Director Rob Schultz and Program Director of One Llama Media, Amit Sudharsan on some new strategies for the ad supported digital music industry.

There are thousands of streaming music sites and music services. Most of the ads on these services are randomly placed with no apparent recognition of context or demographics. This is unlike terrestrial radio in which ads are carefully placed based on zipcode and format and priced via Arbitron ratings. Google has its audio ad service (Audioads!?) which includes an "Ad Creation Marketplace" so that you commission an audio or video ad via a bidding process and place audio ads into 1600 radio stations via an adwords-like systematic process. Google also has the equivalent "video" version of this service emerging. I assume the first platform for this will be YouTube, however they are also aiming at CATV and VOD. As advertisers shift more of their budgets to the Internet, ad serving technologies for targeting and accurate metrics will be increasingly important and present a increasing competitive challenge to traditional methods. Sphere: Related Content

Hello from Chicagoland, Northwestern University

Hello from the Intelligent Information Lab at Northwestern University’s Ford Design Center. It’s a beautiful building on a beautiful campus and I got to bike all around it and swim in the lake. The Chicago / Evanston beaches are nicer than many in LA. To my surprise the water was still colder than the Pacific but refreshing nonetheless!

My client here is a spin-out from the Info Lab, Beyond Broadcast Media. They specialize in automating the laborious process of supplementing media with highly relevant information. For example, you're watching your favorite Emmy award winning program, MAD MEN. The BBCast Media system has sifted through all the metadata associated with all of the episodes of Mad Men no mater how poor it may be. The system has structured the data into a “canonical” form and from that it goes on to create carefully structured queries that return incredibly contextually relevant results based upon pre-determined domains such as additional videos, fansites, news, blogs and shopping, I got a demo of their latest software tools for managing media related metadata. We also discussed how important metadata is to the user experience and to monetizing almost any form of media.

Earlier in the day I met with Associate Professor Michael Smith, Director of the Media Management Program at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management. We discussed how media companies need to adopt new strategies to survive including institutionalizing innovation, giving next generation workers more opportunities, making partnerships and placing a business focus beyond just numerical performance goals.

I also met with Justin Kerr, the Executive Director and Publisher of Site of Broad Shoulders (www.sobs.org). A great not-for-profit niche site dedicated to publishing Chicagoland Artists. They are about to launch an Internet radio service. They have an interesting work style whereby everyone gets together weekly to “produce” the site. While Justin talks content and editorial, Jake Eldridge, CEO, tweaks the software and the Content Management System. Sphere: Related Content

Class #3 Summer 08: Digital Production, Mace Camhe

Big thanks to Mace Camhe, Founder and Head of Production from The Outfit Media Group (www.theoutfitmg.com). We all benefited greatly form his first-hand experience, which he so generously shared. Mace discussed his job of wrangling talent and educating clients while managing schedules and budgets to get projects to completion. Mace was excited about how the RED ( www.red.com ) is actually transforming acquisition and how is shop is currently hot on the Panasonic HD P2 Format for its speed of no-tape workflow. He enlightened me about how Oakley makes its own “glass” and that it is of superior quality. We discussed “workflow” in the contact of production and post and how Mace keeps a Post Supervisor on staff to Sheppard the process through. Production budgets are being constantly squeezed while quality is still going up due to an evolving talent pool and excellent tools. Speed of production and post is what he says “fills in the holes” and continues to “push the envelope”. Mace talked about how his company becomes part of team that serves clients along with PR companies and advertising agencies. We discussed what makes video viral and how this is more of the future. Mace was good enough to share with us the newly minted teaser for the “Follow-Series” on Kira Plastinina, teenage fashion mogul. Thanks again Mace!

NEWS
Shannon pointed out the NYT article on the success of the latest WHERE THE HELL IS MATT, AKA “DANCING MATT” viral video accruing over 20 million views on You tube and Stride gum as a sponsor. It sparked our discussion on what makes something viral. It was reported in Wired.com that Mark Cuban’s HD NET is going to release movies on HD TV ahead of theatrical turning the traditional “Windowing” upside down. Cuban believes that this will not cannibalize a theatrical release. Nielsen has come out with its “3 Screen” product measuring consumer consumption of content across mobile, PC and TV. Someone else reported that digital cable seems to be getting better uptake than Direct Broadcast Satellite TV. Is it pricing? Quality? Content? Services? User experience? I brought up the FISA law amendment and was informed that it passed the Senate making it Law that the tacos have immunity and could not be prosecuted for complying with the government in granting access to customer’s electronic communications. Any guarantee to your right to electronic privacy has been revoked.

CLASS: Digital Production and Distribution
The Slides for this class can be viewed at this link (I added some additional detail)
We covered digital acquisition, post-production including Digital Intermediate, and digital theatrical distribution with electronic projection. There are a many HD Formats to choose from Prosumer camcorders such as the Cannon VIXIA to the high-end Electronic New Gathering (ENG) and Field Production cameras like the SONY XD Cam and Panasonic P2. The XD Cam uses optical media and the P2 records onto a flash RAM card. No transferring form tape! The higher end digital Cinema cameras include the F900, CineAlta, Viper, and the revolutionary RED. I spoke with an experienced Gaffer, Jimmy Scott who confirmed that the image quality from the RED can be as good as most 35mm shoots and in some cases can reveal even more detail because there is no grain. RED’s latest product will be a 5K-resolution camera.

Digital Intermediate is the process by which all the finishing steps of a film are done digitally. Any filmed elements are scanned and digitized. The final master is indeed digital and can be output to film via a film recorder or encoded into a Digital Cinema Package (DCP) for digital projection. The two competing digital projector manufacturers are Christie Digital and Sony. Sony has the XRD 4K model, which project mind-blowing images up to IMAX size.

3D using the REAL D or 3ALITY system is rolling out. The 10 July LA TIMES ( In 3D! Oh wait... The studios may be ready, but many theaters still aren't) reported that it is now in only 800 of the 35,000 US screens but is viewed as the antidote for flagging feature film attendance, which has dropped over 12% since 2002. Revenues have kept up due to rising ticket prices. The article goes on to herald the forthcoming increase in digital 3D releases.

Electronic Projection also enables exhibitors to show pre-show ads and special events such as the Metropolitan Opera. In the near future digital cinema 3D concerts and sports events will become common.

We also discussed that “Windows” for movie distribution are changing. Mark Cuban announced that he would release some movie on his HD NET TV Network before, or at the same time as in theaters.
Big thanks to Mace Camhe, Founder and Head of Production from The Outfit Media Group (www.theoutfitmg.com). We all benefited greatly form his first-hand experience which he so generously shared. Mace discussed his job of wrangling talent and educating clients while managing schedules and budgets to get projects to completion. Mace was excited about how the RED ( www.red.com ) is actually transforming acquisition and how is shop is currently hot on the Panasonic HD P2 Format for its speed of no-tape workflow. He enlightened me about how Oakley makes its own “glass” and that it is of superior quality. We discussed “workflow” in the contact of production and post and how Mace keeps a Post Supervisor on staff to shepard the process through. Production budgets are being constantly squeezed while quality is still going up due to an evolving talent pool and excellent tools. Speed of production and post is what he says “fills in the holes” and continues to “push the envelope”. Mace talked about how his company becomes part of team that serves clients along with PR companies and advertising agencies. We discussed what makes video viral and how this is more of the future. Mace was good enough to share with us the newly minted teaser for the “Follow-Series” on Kira Plastinina, teenage fashion mogul. Thanks again Mace! Sphere: Related Content

Class #2 Summer 2008

Hope you all had a great July 4th Weekend!
First, let me welcome the new adds to the class:
Mike is direct from a hellish stint as an exec assistant where he was driven to distraction by being ordered to perform meaningless, life sucking tasks and is recovering his self-esteem with the UCLA Producing Certification Program. Exchange Students Vladimir form Russia, Banu from Turkey and Yvonne from Kenya are all in the Cert program too. Vladimir is also a freelance Editor. Gautam is an Engineer and articulate D.J. blogging at http://thesmoothdj.com. Ece is in the Music Business Certification program studying tour management.


NEWS
Vincente tuned us into the new streaming box VOD of over 10,000 movies over the Netflix “Ready” device for $99 from Roku. I was amazed to here that after buying the box you can pay just $8.99 per month for the 1 DVD over the mail and you can watch unlimited movies over the box. Roku was one of the first CE companies to create media “adaptors” which bridge the Internet to the home entertainment devices starting with Internet radio to stereos.

We debated about eBay’s liability in the counterfeit goods case for which a court in Europe ordered eBay to pay $61 million in damages. Most believe that eBay should not be held liable for this would be poor precedent for other Internet e-commerce providers.

Hulu, the new Internet Video “channel” from Newscorp and NBC Uni had some news. More people watch comedies on Hulu than on the Network sites, whereas the opposite is true for dramas. We debated as to why that is. Some say it is the short form nature of comedy. It could also be in the user experience and the way that comedies are showcased on Hulu Vs NBC.com and Fox.com. It could also have to do with the demographics of who is logging on to the respective sites.

Nokia announced that it had made a licensing deal with Warner Music Group. This is an example of new business model for the NOKIA MUSIC STORE, which, I think, is aimed squarely at iTunes and is similar to Verizon’s Vcast Music with Rhapsody. In Nokia’s case, their store will be carrier agnostic and probably be the music solution for many international carriers.

Shannon pointed out this NYT Article about a new Google sponsored media / entertainment initiative with Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane (NYT Article : Google and Creator of ‘Family Guy’ Strike a Deal)

I mentioned the Android / Google article in the July issue of Wired and how important it could be the burgeoning wireless world.

CLASS
I covered part II of the “Trends” lecture. Recapping demographics and moving on to the megatrends of:

1. Convergence
2. Booming CE Industry
3. Any Screen Anywhere Anytime
4. Wireless Broadband
5. Digital Production
6. Internationalization of the Movie and Entertainment Industry

Next Class we have a guest speaker:
Mace Camhe a Principal of The Outfit Media (www.theoutfitmg.com). We will hear about the Outfit Media Group and talk about digital production trends. Sphere: Related Content