Category: General

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Assisted Editing Item of Interest

Assisted Editing has a new tag line…

Assisted Editing has a new tag line – “Taking the boring out of post” because that’s what our tools do. http://tinyurl.com/2fvw8to

We originally settles on “Smart Tools for Smart Editors and Producers” but in reality our goal is to take all the boring work out of post production, whether it’s syncing audio and video sources together, copying log notes from one bin to another or doing a series of first cuts to explore your content we want to take the boring, tedious, slow parts out so editors are free to focus on the truly creative work of making an edit emotionally compelling and visually stimulating.

Categories
Item of Interest The Business of Production

YouTube May Buy NextNew Networks

YouTube May Buy Video Production Company http://tinyurl.com/2ck84rz

Mmm, my prediction may be paying off. http://tinyurl.com/37e5b5g It might be easier for Google (and Apple) to commission their own work instead of relying on user submissions. At least with internally generated content Google know the quality and “salability” of the content.

As companies like Hulu and Netflix offer more shows and videos online, and as Google tries to lure people to watch YouTube on their televisions through its Google TV software, YouTube is increasingly focused on providing professional content and figuring out how to attract audiences and advertisers to the programming.

Next New Networks, a start-up based in New York, was founded in 2007 to create original Web television shows, and has found success with series like “Barely Political” and “Indy Mogul.”

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Distribution Item of Interest

The Terence and Philip Show Episode 16

The Terence and Philip Show Episode 16 http://tinyurl.com/34ahexb Is their any evidence piracy hurts the industry? Apparently not.

With the US Government Accounting Office dismissing RIAA and MPAA “research” as being lacking in any factual basis, is unauthorized distribution hurting or helping the industry?

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Assisted Editing Item of Interest

Great article by Lee Schneider at Technorati

Great article by Lee Schneider at Technorati – Humans and Machines – Technorati Gadgets http://bit.ly/gXYg6s Page 2 features our prEdit but it’s not the only reason to read the article.

Categories
Distribution Item of Interest The Business of Production

Maybe New Media are closer to being media than we thought? [Updated]

Yahoo IS Focused: “We’re A Content Company” http://tinyurl.com/286g7dv See update at end.

Yahoo’s CEO Bartz made an interesting statement in light of yesterday’s The Truth about the Future of Media post: Yahoo – one of the new media companies listed – has come out firmly that they are a Content Company.

On stage at Web 2.0 last month, CEO Carol Bartz said Yahoo is focused on content. Technology is important to personalize that content to users, but editors are important as well–for instance, no algorithm could have predicted that users would be interested in the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year, since a similar event hadn’t happened in a long time.

Now here’s where it gets interesting. When I posted the link yesterday I really felt that it was a stretch to consider Google, Yahoo, Twitter, Apple et al “new media” as we think of it from a content perspective, but the above post and some other items today make me wonder.

There’s an unsubstantiated rumor that Apple are negotiating a deal with Howard Stern for an exclusive agreement after his Sirius radio contract ends, although I do feel it’s unlikely.

Stern’s contract with Sirius is up in January, and the response from the media has been mostly skeptical. Objections include the expense and short term of the deal, Steve Jobs’ stated dedication to keeping iTunes family-friendly, the FCC fines Stern has accumulated in the past, and the probable angry reaction from the many fans who have paid to follow him on satellite radio.

Apple are showing some signs of intending to be a distributor. They have an exclusive period with the Beatles collection until some time in 2011. They also have an exclusive deal to distribute a single from Michael Jackson’s posthumous album via Ping. But these are distribution deals, not content creation like the Howard Stern deal would be.

Then on another note Facebook CEO is quoted as saying:

“Facebook expects insurgent entrepreneurs to “reform” the film, TV, news, e-commerce and music industries with the help of Facebook. Some of these companies will be incumbents. Some will unseat incumbents.  Facebook will then – perhaps through credits or advertising, but also perhaps some other way – tax these companies in exchange for the value it has added”  Here is “Zuck” quoted:

“Anything that involves content or specific expertise in an area – games, music, movies, TV, news, anything in media, anything e-commerce, any of this stuff. Over the next five years, those verticals are going to be completely re-thought. There are going to be some really good businesses built. Our view is that we should play a role in helping to re-form and re-think all those industries, and we’ll get value proportional to what we put in. In gaming, we get some percentage of the value of those companies through ads and credits. But that’s all because we’re helping them…”

This suggests Facebook see themselves as playing a role in the inevitable changes that are coming to media production and distribution (and want a cut).

So, of the “new media” companies identified in yesterday’s quoted post, Yahoo and Facebook are both focused on content creation at some level, with Apple a possibility. I hypothesized about this about a year ago when I wrote What if Apple or Google simply bypassed Networks and Studios?

[Update] Not even an hour after I initially posted this the news comes that Google has purchased content distributor Widevine (from Google’s announcement):

“So we’re pleased to announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Widevine. The Widevine team has worked to provide a better video delivery experience for businesses of all kinds: from the studios that create your favorite shows and movies, to the cable systems and channels that broadcast them online and on TV, to the hardware manufacturers that let you watch that content on a variety of devices. By forging partnerships across the entire ecosystem, Widevine has made on demand services more efficient and secure for media companies, and ultimately more available and convenient for users.”

Now its getting interesting.

 

Categories
Distribution Item of Interest

DirecTV Kicks Niche Content to the Curb [Updated]

DirecTV Kicks Niche Content to the Curb http://tinyurl.com/27j6278

If networks carrying niche content don’t find distribution with the traditional cable and satellite broadcasters their only recourse will be to find distribution via the Internet. Once people get used to consuming content through that infrastructure – because they were forced to in order to watch the content they enjoy – it becomes that much easier to drop the rest of DirecTV (or your cable provider) and go all IP.

So, good on DirecTV for driving the conversion to IP based networks and the eventual lack of need for DirecTV.

The decision by pay TV providers to drop low-rated networks is happening as distributors are coming under pressure to pay ever-increasing fees to programmers. In most cases, those costs get passed on to the consumer in the form of higher cable bills. But with cable bills rising about 8 percent over the past year, it’s clear that continually raising rates is unsustainable. Rather than pay increasing fees, some consumers have begun canceling their cable or satellite subscriptions altogether, as the number of people who pay for TV hasdropped for two consecutive quarters.

[Update] It was pointed out by Austin Wallender, via Twitter, that G4 was rating poorly on DirecTV and was owned by a competitor so it’s dropping was from “normal business practice”. I can support the low ratings but if ownership by a competitor is really driving DirecTV’s programming, that’s a bigger and more worrying issue.

Categories
Business & Marketing Distribution Item of Interest Media Consumption New Media

Here’s The Truth About The Future of the Media Industry

Here’s The Truth About The Future Of The Media Industry http://tinyurl.com/2627upb

The presentation takes a very liberal view of media – essentially anything that is presented with ads beside it to support it (and I’d disagree with that definition but whatever) – but makes the point that “new media” companies are as large and important as “old media” companies.

Slide 8 of the deck shows the relative sizes (market cap) of new and old media and the companies that are included.

Slide 12 introduces the question of “the next battleground: Video” and shows that the trend to IP-delivered video entertainment is “real”.

Good stuff – hard to copy and past images of graphs but clicking through is worth the effort.

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Distribution Item of Interest

Hey Hollywood: Netflix Isn’t the Enemy.

Hey Hollywood: Netflix Isn’t the Enemy, Old Thinking Is http://tinyurl.com/3xasbo7 Netflix wants to pay “Hollywood” good money but no….

The studios and networks helped create this monster by selling Netflix streaming rights to their content, and now they’re finding that they can’t control it. The feeling from content owners — that Netflix is going to eat their lunch if they aren’t careful — has got many rethinking their dealings with the company, and how they distribute digital content in general. But instead of blaming Netflix, movie moguls need to figure out how to make money as their industry moves online, just as moguls in the music and media industry are trying to do today with varying levels of success.

Categories
Item of Interest Monetizing The Business of Production

McRibs and the Art of Artificial Scarcity

McRibs and the Art of Artificial Scarcity http://tinyurl.com/2ebms7v

I loved the Disney example in the article – it’s a perfect attempt (a good one) at creating artificial scarcity. It’s easy to take a physical good off the market – like the MacRib – but with Snow White, I wonder if the artificial scarcity will be as successful when beautiful digital copies get “out there”.

And that’s the problem with artificial scarcities on digital goods: they don’t work. DRM is an attempt to force artificial scarcity and it’s cracked time, after time, after time. If your customer and hear and see your product, it can be reproduced infinitely for little cost.

So the ultimate question is: what are the real scarcities surrounding a film or TV project and how do we monetize them?

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Item of Interest

The Terence and Philip Show Episode 15.

The Terence and Philip Show Episode 15: Workflow vs “just Cutting”. http://tinyurl.com/2vfhrh6 Can you ignore workflow and “just cut”?

Terence and Philip discuss the importance of designing workflow as opposed to simply jumping in and cutting. How have the roles of Assistant changed. The inevitable sidetrack covers the role of “independent film” when so many get made but never return their investment, and what’s the better alternative.

We also discuss the workflow for reality TV.