Category: General

Why DRM Doesn’t Work http://bit.ly/aIRiuL

Forget the other arguments against DRM – that it doesn’t stop unauthorized distribution, that it harms you customers, that it is always circumvented, that it’s a way of controlling distribution and limiting it to big media – the real argument against it is that DRM doesn’t increase profits.

This basic misunderstanding between pirates and companies is the reason why anti-piracy measures will never work as a means of increasing profits. Game companies assume that if they decrease the ease with which people can pirate their game, they will increase their sales. But that is not the case. The vast majority of people will, if they lose the ability to download an illegal copy of a game, simply choose to not pirate the game and not purchase the game. I’m not making this up, either – independent game developer Reflexive published an article on Gamasutra about their experience trying to curtail piracy to increase sales. Their conclusion was that making pirated copies of their game more difficult to obtain did not increase sales. And this, mind you, was regarding game that only cost 10 dollars to purchase.

Although it focuses on game distribution the lessons apply equally well to music, movies and TV.

Tiny Number Of Creators Hitting The Jackpot… Or Many Making A Living Wage? http://bit.ly/b3Yaog

Put me down squarely in the corner of those who’s goal from “democratized” television (music and film) is to have more people making more money (decent living/middle class wage) than ever before. This will inevitably mean that fewer people win the jackpot of success.

To me this is a much better goal than trying to win the jackpot lottery of outrageous success., Every $2 milliion that a big name makes equates to 20 people early a very decent $100 K. And Ryan Seacrest’s $15 million a year to spokesmodel American Ido is obscene: That’s 150 people’s decent middle class income.

In that post, Parsons calls the old model — the one we described as the lottery ticket — as the “gambler model,” where you’re basically rolling the dice on whether or not your career will be a success or will plummet. And notes that the “cobbler model,” may not be as sexy, but you have a higher likelihood of success. The risk is lower, and the payoff is likely lower, but you can actually build a predictable career around it — and for many content creators, that’s certainly good enough. This isn’t to suggest it’s the only model. In fact, it’s not. There’s still room for rock stars and lottery tickets. But, when we’re looking at some of these content creators who are making a good living as professional musicians, the proper comparison is not to Mick Jagger, but to what they’d be doing if they were living in the world a few decades ago: and the answer is they probably wouldn’t be making music at all.

5 Actions You Want Every One Of Your Video Viewers To Take http://bit.ly/bwbsMK

A good basic reminder that we actually want people to do something when we post a video:

1. Find it
2. Start playing
3. Finish playing
4. Convert – do something as a result (like buy your product)
5. Share

Now, this is just my list.  You might group these behaviors differently, and that’s completely valid.  But don’t lump all these actions in together as one, because they all have different triggers and they all have a different impact on your overall success.  Additonally, don’t assume these actions will take care of themselves.  Put yourself in the mind of the viewer.  Not just any viewer, but the specific kind of viewer this video is created for.  And ask yourself what would cause you to click ‘play,’ and then to complete the clip, to perform a conversion action, or to share it with friends.

Real Life Social Network v2 http://bit.ly/9povRP

A very interesting presentation how we function in social networks, both offline and online and where the problems are right now. It’s a long presentation – I felt it would be a good foundation for a book long before I realized the author had written one.

It’s a Scribd document (Flash, sorry) so I can’t copy anything relevant, but I was amused when “Tupperware Parties” were referred to as an example of how we make decisions in groups: the Tupperware Party was a brilliant model. That’s something I learnt very early in life. When I first went to University post High School, I moved out of home and made my living as a Tupperware dealer. (Not really as strange as it sounds, my parents had been Distributors for about 10 years at that time so I’d grown up with the products and knew them well).

He’s absolutely right, it was much easier to sell Tupperware in a group than I imagine it would be person-at-a-time. It was certainly easier to put some social pressure on guests to book another party. Rewards for hostesses always involved a dollar sales figure plus two or more new party bookings. I’m pretty sure I did some social manipulation to get the second one. “Won’t anyone hold a party? Betty’s got the sales figures and she’s just one party booking away from this wonderful gift.”  Tupperware “got” social networking!

new RED color science, and how to make it all work with After Effects CS5 and Premiere Pro CS5 http://bit.ly/bfqaUW

Adobe just released a new RED importer plug-in for After Effects CS5 and Premiere Pro CS5 on the Adobe Labs website. This new set of software supports the current RED firmware (#30) and new color science.

Ten successful Social Media campaigns http://bit.ly/9VMpXV

Very interesting to see how social media has been used for everything than increasing wine sales to 37% of “Generation Y” heard about the Ford Fiesta from social media.

Lots of positive Return on Investment for social media, compared with just 18% of traditional TV campaigns that generate a positive ROI. Ouch.

The stories are showcased in brief in the article, with a link to great video from Erik Qual man (@equalman) at Social nomics.

Video quality less important when you’re enjoying what you’re watching http://bit.ly/bE44lX Not surprising result, gells with my experience.

Although most of us within the production community care greatly about quality of image and sound, it turns out our audiences are probably not paying the same level of attention. Once quality gets “good enough” the average viewer stops caring about quality and watches content.

Using four studies, Kortum, along with co-author Marc Sullivan of AT&T Labs, showed 100 study participants 180 movie clips encoded at nine different levels, from 550 kilobits per second up to DVD quality. Participants viewed the two-minute clips and then were asked about the video quality of the clips and desirability of the movie content.

Kortum found a strong correlation between the desirability of movie content and subjective ratings of video quality.

The Terence and Philip Show Episode 4 http://bit.ly/cXIzex