Will Cell Phone Video Recorders and Handheld Projectors Cause Mayhem and Joy?

When the iPhone 3Gs came out, YouTube noted a very fast uptick in the number of mobile videos being posted to the site.  It doesn’t hurt that one can post with just one click directly from the iPhone.  While not the first phone able to do this, it is certainly one with a large and fast-growing user base and while they are leading the way other makers will be forced to offer similar features soon.

Now, add to the mix the emergence of powerful, pocket-sized video projectors that can operate on battery power and project images the size of a large-screen TV onto any flat surface. Still in their early stages, these projectors will improve over time and it can’t be long until anyone with the equipment can beam billboard-sized video onto the wall of their choice.

Now, combine these two devices and try to imagine the possibilities:

1) A major riot breaks out in a big city.  Someone sees an act of police brutality. They film it with their phone and then, before you can say “hey, you” the footage is beamed onto the wall of a building for the whole crowd to see.

2) A group of people are waiting in line for tickets to a new film.  A young filmmaker gives those in line a preview of his own latest work, beamed onto the side of the cinema itself. For free.

3) More scary, advertisers arm workers with short video ads and ask them to walk around town and beam them on any wall near a crowd.

I could just keep going and going.  I don’t even want to think out the new laws that will be created and the absurd policing to follow.

And we haven’t even discussed just beaming it live…

Qik and Brightcove May Soon Present “Live From…Anywhere.”

Sure, the terrible violence and politcal unrest in Iran is a tragic and disheartening story, but the “real” story continues to be how social media sites like Twitter and YouTube have been bringing the sad story to the world.

While it remains to be seen what will happen to Mahmoud and company, the writing is clearly on the wall for traditonal journalism.  The “citizen” journalists are rising up and taking reporting of the news into their own hands.  Is it neat and tidy and fact-checked? Not really.  Is it instantly more compelling, engrossing and informative than any half-hour with Tom Brokaw could ever promise to deliver?  You bet.

Of course, what’s been largely missing in this journalistic uprising is live video reports from down in the trenches.

Qik has been providing a service that allows certain cell phone users to live stream to the internet.  While they are expanding the number of devices offering this service, they are combining forces with Brightcove, a very large internet video distribution company, resulting in, eventually, the ability for ordinary folks with cell phones to “broadcast” live over a potentially massive network of sites reaching, theoretically, millions of viewers.  All of this without any satellite trucks or multi-million dollar news-vans.  No FCC, no corporate overseers and no commercial sponsors to placate.

As technology like this becomes more widespread it is going to become harder than ever for anyone to hide.  Imagine the power of not just, say, audiotaping an encounter with a NYC police officer detaining you unlawfully.  Now imagine live streaming that same encounter.

It will be very interesting to see how various goverments react to these innovations.  As Lancaster, PA has proven, the government loves the idea of cameras watching our every move but what happens when the cameras are turned back onto them?

Your Ringtone is a “Public Performance” So Pay Up!

Just when you thought it was safe to let those around you know how much you love Lady Gaga every time you get a call, the folks at ASCAP think you should be paying them (and eventually, maybe, if the money ever gets there, Lady Gaga) an additional “performance” fee for each “ring” :

Its latest move is to claim that legally purchased ringtones on mobiles phones, playing in public places, represents a public performance for which it is owed royalties. Songwriters and music publishers already are paid royalties on ringtone purchases, but ASCAP is claiming that buying the file is entirely different than “the performance” (i.e., the phone ringing).     LINK

This claim is absurd on many levels, and a quick read of the post on TechDirt makes it pretty clear this is a weak case, but let’s play devil’s advocate for a second and pretend ASCAP actually wins this fight.

The first question I would ask is, how would they, or my cell phone service provider, know which ringtone I have assigned?  Many of my ringtones are customized.  Also, would I be charged more if I failed to answer on the first chorus?  What if I am alone when my phone rings?  How many people would need to be present when my phone rang to be construed as a performance.  How will ASCAP or my cell phone company know how many people are within earshot when my phone rings?

Yeah, this should go smoothly.  Nice work, ASCAP.  Way to look out for those artists.

Will Some Cultures Leapfrog the Industrial Age?

I was just taking a walk and listening to an NPR podcast about an Afghan version of American Idol that recently finished its first hugely popular and wildly controversial fist season on what I assume is the bravest television network in Afghanistan.

The emergence and popularity of this show in a country often portrayed as America’s polar opposite says a lot about how we are all more alike than different.  However, that’s not the point of this post.

During an interview with one of the Afghan show’s creators, it was mentioned that the SMS voting in final rounds was so intense that it literally overloaded the network and temporarily shut it down.  The creator said he wasn’t surprised since this was the first time Afghan audiences had had the opportunity to participate in a show in this manner and that many were not familiar with sending text messages.

Well, no shit! As far as I understand it, Afghanistan is still largely an agrarian society.  While some of the innovations of the industrial age are present, this is not a part of the world that ever made the true transition that we saw in the United States and Europe.  This means that Afghanistan, along with numerous other cultures from places like China, India and throughout Africa, will be simply skipping the Industrial Age altogether as the Digital Age takes shape.

We are already seeing amazing examples of how the Digital Age is able to be adopted by each culture in unique ways that tend to support and expand on existing societal foundations.  Think of how rural farmers are now able to use cell phones to check on the price of produce at markets a two-days walk away, allowing him to cart the proper amounts of the most valuable items.

While the Industrial Age certainly created sweeping changes in the Western world, it is going to be fascinating to see what happens to those cultures that simply skip it altogether.

Live TV Coming to iPhones?

According to  The Business Insider, software makers PacketVideo are planning to release an iPhone app that will enable users to watch live TV on their phone.

The ability to watch live TV on mobile phones has been a reality in both Japan and South Korea for some time and seems to have been very popular among users.

For the networks it is hard to see how this would be anything but beneficial.  More eyeballs forced to watch the commercials that are still a part of the live TV experience.  Of course, this is not good news for cable operators, especially if PacketVideo somehow is able to offer something other than what is already freely available via over-the-air broadcasts.

The iPhone also lacks a TV-tuner so the signal has to be coming via WiFi so who knows.  It is beyond my technical understanding.

The bigger question is whether or not anyone wants to watch live TV on their phones.  The only real applications I can think of are news and sports.  News might be a possibilty, but I would hate to be PacketVideo trying to wrangle broadcasting licenses from the major sporting leagues.

Celebs Should Just Out-Pap the Paps

There is an article in today’s NYT about the pictures and video posted via Twitter by Ashton Kutcher and Demi more during and after the Academy Awards last night:

While watching the Academy Awards on TV Sunday night, Hollywood couple Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore sent text updates to fans via Twitter. At a post-Oscars party afterward, they also uploaded several grainy photographs using TwitPic, an application that allows users to post pictures taken with their mobile phones to their Twitter accounts. Mr. Kutcher posted two low-resolution photos: a blurred image of producer Sean Combs along with the note “Diddy throws up oscars” and one of Mr. Kutcher himself clutching an Oscar, accompanied by the text “Me and penelopes oscar.” Ms. Moore turned her cameraphone on herself and Mr. Kutcher decked out in their postceremony party gear, garnering thousands of hits in less than a minute.

I’m actually surprised more fans don’t take more control of their public exposure.  All they would really have to do to get rid of the Paparazzi is to release floods of pictures they (or their friends) have taken – give them away to the media orgs for free and just put the paps right out of business.

Considering the level of access the actual stars have it is impossible to imagine a professional paparazzi being able to compete.

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HBO, Facing Obsolesence, Tries Threatening Inaugural Ball ‘Tubers

HBO, which has a completely obsolete business model at the moment, took a shot at relevance by securing the exclusive rights to film and air Barack Obama’s Inaugural Ball.

Now, via TechDirt, comes word that HBO is attempting to force the takedown of personal videos posted on YouTube that were shot by regular folks lucky enough to be in attendance last night.

The majority of these videos seem to be short clips shot on cellphones and it is pretty hard to imagine how their presence online could harm HBO’s “exclusive” rights.  Nobody is going to watch those videos as a replacement for HBO’s professionally shot and produced video nor will anyone mistake those videos for the work of HBO.

Not only is it just plain mean to attempt to stop folks from sharing their personal looks into a major historical moment but it makes HBO look bad.  Considering how few reasons there are to pay for HBO, you’ve got to wonder why they would risk web backlash…unless they were blind and ignorant when it comes to New Media.

Nah…

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ARG’s – Time to Get Into the Game

ARG, or “Alternate Reality Gaming” has been around for a bit now but is still only slowly trickling into the mainstream.  A big reason for this is that it is the nature of an ARG to target “super-fans” willing to invest the sort of time and energy required for full participation.

Now MentalFloss.com is providing a great overview of ARGs and some great links to help you get involved:

For example, in the ARG for The Dark Knight, a few lucky players visited participating bakeries and bought cakes that had been reserved for “Robin Banks.” Written in the icing was a phone number. When the player dialed the number, a cell phone hidden inside the cake began to ring. As the campaign went on, these players received text messages, recorded voice messages, and were instructed to call numbers to gain further access to the game’s many puzzles.

Check out the whole story here.

I think ARGs are going to continue to grow as people become more comfortable moving between the various forms of communication out there and as marketers look for new ways to create true user engagement.

Mumbai Madness Captured By Digital Citizens While CNN Was Blocked

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Like many others, my Thanksgiving joys were tempered by the madness in Mumbai.  While the major news organizations struggled to get information out to the public it was the public themselves who were telling the world just what was going on.

Services like Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and even good old fashioned email, combined with the massive proliferation of “smart” phones capable of capturing photo and video and transmitting it nearly instantaneouasly meant that the flow of information out of Mumbai was simply not going to be limited to what CNN was able to access.

In fact, if it weren’t for the rise of what is being refered to as “citizen journalism” who knows what the world might have missed:

“At the end of the day on Friday, CNN’s license to transmit live video in India expired, forcing the network’s correspondents to report via telephone. CNN and other channels in the United States relied on live coverage and taped reports from Indian networks.

The cameras and phones carried by people swept up in the attacks were not subject to any such rules. Mr. Shanbhag photographed one of the fires at the Taj hotel and the wreckage outside a popular cafe that was attacked on Wednesday and posted them on his Flickr stream. Some people transmitted video from inside the Taj hotel to news networks via cellphones. And reporters used cellphones to send text messages to hotel guests who had set up barricades in their rooms.” (via)

While governments spend more time and money than ever trying to monitor their citizens it is at least a bit comforting to know that some citizens are doing some monitoring of their own.

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On My Phone – More Video Please!

Image via Wikipedia

The US lags way behind much of Asia and Europe when it comes to watching video on our cell phones (question: how many people need to ditch their landlines before we can just say “phone” and everyone know we mean “cell phone?”).

Mashable has a good look at what’s holding us back (technology, lack of rich content, etc.) and sees some hope in the future.

I think that wider adoption on mobile video viewing will come quickly, especially as handsets like the iPhone make the viewing process much more enjoyable.  The iPhone’s lack of Flash-compatibilty is the only thing that stops me from watching loads of videos online while I’m away from my laptop.

It would also be a great boon to producers and distributors of things like webseries that could automatically push new episodes to your phone much like you can have email pushed.

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