The Wilderness Downtown: How it was Made http://bit.ly/bEybDx
By now you’ve no doubt seen The Wilderness Downtown, which is an amazing mash-up of HTML5 technologies, Google Street View and Canvas animation. The article details how each element was constructed, what technology was used and how it all came together.
Digital Video Expo – my session’s free on Wednesday http://bit.ly/9zGShE
I’m also teaching three sessions in the conference Thursday and doing the first public demo of our latest software  – for paper cuts without the pain – prEdit demo at the LAFCPUG meeting Wednesday night.
ABC’s Ingenious App Uses Sound to Sync iPad, TV http://bit.ly/c2n5In
ABC’s iPad app for the television show “My Generation†creates a seamless, two-screen, interactive television experience by bridging a cable/satellite connection and an iPad, two digital devices, by measuring decidedly analog sound waves using the iPad’s microphone. The app looks for certain contours in the audio signal that the Neilsen television ratings firm uses to monitor broadcasts, so that it knows when to display a particular poll or other item linking up with a precise moment in the show.
Though television companion apps exist for the iPad, this automatic syncing feature represents a big step forward. And while ABC is only rolling this out for a single program, it’s such a clever, obvious-in-retrospect idea — not to mention far easier than writing digital code to keep the devices synced wirelessly even if the user watches at someone else’s house or later, using on-demand or a DVR — that it could easily become widespread across many shows.
Are Apple TV Rentals Too Cheap? http://bit.ly/c0ETzV Hell no! They’re too expensive already. http://bit.ly/bz7MKn
I’ve written about this before, at the second link above, but now Barry Meyer, Chariman of Warner Bros. Entertainment, is arguing that the 99c rental fee is too low:
The paper quotes Meyer saying that he doesn’t want to “open up a rental business in television at a low price.†His biggest fear seems to be that cheap rentals will hurt the licensing of entire seasons to other broadcasters.
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Two versions of a story  of a game developer working with ‘piracy’ as promotion. http://bit.ly/adO5Bo http://bit.ly/9haBji CwF+RtB
Although Minecraft already has 658429 registered players, due to the fact that it’s widely available on torrent and warez sites, many of these are unauthorized users.
But what’s most impressive is that at the time of writing, 155521 (23.62%) of these have already bought the game of their own free will. In the last 24 hours alone, a 11804 people registered to play, and 4910 of them bought the game. (updated statshere)
Those are good numbers regardless of whether or not everyone pays. Despite the propaganda from the RIAA, MPAA and their ilk, not every download would have been a sale, so converting a good portion that increases sales can’t be a bad thing. I’m pretty sure my HD Survival Handbook has been “pirated” but the legit sales are enough to have covered the time and effort that went into it, so I’m just not worried about something I can’t stop.
The developer also comments (somewhat obscurely I think):
“Piracy will win in the long run. It has to,†says Notch. “The alternative is too scary.â€
Android’s Google Translate, Conversation Mode – http://bit.ly/cainG7 effectively replicates Star Trek’s Universal Voice Translator.
Who could read that headline and not comment?
Mobile product director Hugo Barra demoed a forthcoming update to Android’s Google Translate, Conversation Mode, which effectively replicates Star Trek’s Universal Voice Translator– it uses the phone to facilitate a two-way conversation between people speaking in different languages.
Personally, I’m hanging out for the Halodeck.
The Attack Of Branded Content: Who Will Control TV On The Web? (TCTV) http://tcrn.ch/aa3VKG
I’m a much bigger fan of “branded content” than advertising because:
Now, Erick Shonfeld of Techcrunch is less of a fan of Branded Content than I am, but I think he makes a fundamental mistake in his introductory paragraph:
I’ve got to admit, the concept of “branded content†on the Web makes me cringe. It is generally used to refer to Web videos created and packaged specifically for an advertiser. Maybe I am old-fashioned, but I like my videos created for the audience first, not advertisers. And yet, in the budding Web video industry, branded content is bringing in some serious dollars and even some serious talent.
He makes the mistake that “videos [are] created for the audience”. Television Content has only one customer: the advertiser. The producer makes a show that the network/cable channel thinks they can sell to enough advertisers to get a return. The audience is never an important factor, other than there needs to be enough of them to sell the advertiser on advertising on the show.
Branded Content is more likely to be made for the audience because if it’s not then the brand is going to get much less value from it. On a recent Terence and Philip Show Terence Curren told the story of a mom-focused show sponsored by Kraft, but looking at the video the only obvious intrusion of the sponsorship by Kraft was a strategically placed bottle of Kraft dressing in a family meal shot. Terry says he would not have noticed other than he knew that Kraft sponsored the show.
Advertising – creating an audience that you can then ‘sell-out’ to advertisers by interrupting the entertainment to force you to watch advertising. With Branded Content we choose what we want to watch, in return we’ll probably see one or two branded items. If that’s well integrated into the show, it’ll only be obvious because broadcast and cable have become “brand phobic”: unless the brand is a sponsor they blur the brand out, or use fake brands.
Read the article and tell me in the comments whether you think Branded Content is a good thing or not. I think it’s better for the audience and better for the advertiser/brand.
I like the model that Mark Pesce promulgated in Piracy is Good? (or on video) where he explains the principles of Hyper-distribution: single sponsor, integrated product promotion; free and widespread distribution.
HTML5 Player Comparison http://bit.ly/9l0fs3
A good listing of features for HTML5 players that allow you to add features beyond basic browser playback, including full screen. Many are iOS compatible and will fall back to use Flash if the browser doesn’t support HTML5 or the format of your video isn’t supported under HTML5 on specific browsers. For example, if you format to MP4 H264 supported by Chrome, Safari and IE9, you’ll get a Flash player fallback on Firefox.
Artists Make More Money in File-Sharing Age Than Before It http://bit.ly/a2ccxk
An extensive study into the effect of digitalization on the music industry in Norway has shed an interesting light on the position of artists today, compared to 1999. While the music industry often talks about artists being on the brink of bankruptcy due to illicit file-sharing, the study found that the number of artists as well as their average income has seen a major increase in the last decade.
Think Tank: Flip-thinking – the new buzz word sweeping the US http://bit.ly/9Uzxks
Most of the article is devoted to flipping the “input” vs “homework” parts of schoolwork on their head, but toward the end of the article the author attempts to theorize about what might happen if the principle is applied to movie distribution:
Or imagine flipping the sequence in the movie business. For blockbusters, the typical strategy is to open huge the first week, maintain the momentum for a while, and then come out on DVD when interest wanes. Alas, most films aren’t blockbusters. So for those sorts of movies, studios instead could first issue a low-price DVD or streaming video to build an audience. If the film proved popular, the studio could then release it to theatres – where early adopters and people who have heard the buzz could watch the film as a communal experience.