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…

Movie Studios Next to Sue Pirate Bay in Latest Act of Futility

A few months ago, one of the larger and better known sites to index torrent files, the Pirate Bay, was successfully sued by a group of music industry types for all sorts of copyright violations resulting in large fines and possible prison sentences.

Of course, this has done nothing to curb music piracy since the Pirate Bay is only one of literally hundreds of sites providing the EXACT SAME links to potentially infringing torrent-files.  In addition to, oh, I dunno, Google and Bing, some of these sites include Mininova, SumoTorrents, Demonoid, Thunderbytes, IsoHunt and, no kidding, hundreds more.

Now comes word that the movie studios are going after the Pirate Bay:

Columbia Pictures, Disney Enterprises, Universal Studios (NYSE:GE) and 10 others are demanding the site’s operators be fined and prevented from distributing TV-series including “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives” and films such as “Batman.”     LINK

Now, a huge percentage of TV piracy is due to FANS of the show living in regions that do not broadcast current episodes.  This piracy is not an act of protest against the show but a major show of love, of a willingness to do whatever it takes to get the latest episode.  You’d think studios would want to figure out how to meet the needs of these super-fans instead of trying to hinder them but that would be far too forward-thinking for this dying Industrial Age model of doing business.

While one might argue that suing the Pirate Bay sends a message to other sites, this same thinking has done nothing to slow the rate of music piracy and force a natural evolution of the industry.  Film and TV is next, whether they like it or not.  In the meantime, they are going to waste millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours trying to shut down the Pirate Bay, after which nothing will have changed but their bank balance.

Kuroshio Sea plus Barcelona Equals Serious Win-Win

One of the big video hits making its way around the interwebs the past week or so is something called “Kuroshio Sea – 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world – (song is Please don’t go by Barcelona)” and it is a gorgeous few minutes:

The video has garnered more than 2,000,000 views, which is great for the filmmaker and the aquarium but it turned out to be even better for the band, Barcelona:

This effect comes because of its perfect synthesis of music and images, making it a proud showcase for the band Barcelona, whose haunting track Please Don’t Go not only scores the video, but dictates its length. And by allowing its use, Barcelona has found itself flooded with new attention.

According to a post on the band’s Myspace blog, “Thanks to this video, and Jon Rawlinson, the director of the video, our album has been pushed back up the iTunes Rock Album charts and is holding strong thanks to all of you who watched the video and then purchased the album.” And in this response video, the band says that people have already begun showing up at concerts because of this piece. (Score one for Chris Anderson’s theory about the power of free.)

There are a couple of very important take-aways here.

First does not appear that Rawlinson asked permission to use the song, yet the band did not start firing out take-down notices or DMCA complaints.  Instead, they have done nothing but support the existence of the video and thank Rawlinson for providing immense amounts of free publicity.

Second, it’s a good thing Barcelona wasn’t signed to Universal Music or their song would have been muted from the video and the band would have gotten absolutely no free publicity.

Yesterday, I was meeting with some fellow “new media” producers.  One of them had come up through the very traditional TV route and commented that the biggest difference he feels working in the emerging digital media universe is the overwhelming degree of support and openness where, in the TV world he had experienced almost exclusively distrust and competitive antagonism.

This is a great demonstration of the new way things work.  Welcome to the Digital Age.

Why Jon Stewart is the Most Trusted Name in News

Lots of folks have been pondering how it could be that, according to a recent Time Magazine poll (see above), Jon Stewart is the most trusted newscaster on TV.  Not only that, but this holds true well outside of his presumed bases of NY and LA.

According to Neatorama:

It’s a sad statement that the most trusted name in news is actually a comedian. I’m not sure if it speaks badly about Americans in general or about the state of our news media.       LINK

I’m sure Neatorama isn’t the only site with such a view but it strikes me as completely missing the point.  In fact, I have to wonder if the author of the above statement has every truly watched The Daily Show with any regularity.

The biggest reason people trust Jon Stewart is authenticity.  Stewart is, at heart, a skeptic who just wants everyone to please explain themselves.  He doesn’t have to portray either a fake neutrality like, say Brian Williams, or a hot-headed reactionary like Rush Limbaugh.  Instead, Jon is reasonable.  He is surprisingly centrist.  Most important of all, many viewers clearly believe that the Jon Stewart on the TV is the same Jon Stewart one would meet at a dinner party.

The lesson is that nothing sells like authenticity.  Unfortunately for many, however, authenticity can not be faked or learned.

TV Everywhere Scheme Includes Ads Everywhere, Too

So, Comcast is getting ready to roll out its attempt to compete with Hulu and Bittorrent and the host of other options to watching traditional cable television, something they have given the misnomer of “TV Everywhere.”

As defined by NewTeeVee:

TV Everywhere is an authentication system whereby certain premium content (TV shows, movies, etc.) are available online — but only if you can prove (or “authenticate”) that you have a subscription to a multiservice operator (e.g. cable, satellite, telco TV).      LINK

So, by everywhere, they don’t actually mean, say, being able to download the show to watch offline on an iPhone or to burn onto a DVD to take on a trip.  Sure, the same can be said for Hulu or any other streaming solution, but it isn’t TV Everywhere.

Now comes word that TV Everywhere will also include ads everywhere:

The Wall Street Journal follows up this morning with a story about how shows from OnDemand Online participant Turner, including My Boys and The Closer, will both carry their full load of ads from traditional TV, which is more than four times as many ads than the typical ad load on many sites. And as a bonus (for advertisers), the ads can’t be skipped.       LINK

So, once again, the corporate giants are making the key mistake of pretending to offer a better service when they are really offering something less than what is already readily available.  Unlike, say, DVR’ing a show and being able to fast-forward the ads, or watch via Hulu and get limited ads, TV Everywhere forces the viewer to sit through the entire ad-load, something most of us haven’t done for years, outside of major sporting events.

As competition to either Hulu or file-sharing, TV Everywhere strikes me as a weak entrant into the field.  It also doesn’t help anyone who has already severed ties with the cable company for being over-priced and offering poor customer service.

MacGyver Should Sue MacGruber. Right?

Considering the way that judges have been ruling lately, seemingly bending over backwards in an effort to “protect” intellectual copyrights against evil writers (see: J.D. Salinger v. John David California), musicians (see: GirlTalk) and artists (see: Shepard Fairey) I am waiting for the next law suit to be filed in MacGyver v. MacGruber.

See, MacGyver was a TV from the 80’s where a guy would somehow extricate himself from a bad jam with nothing more than a stick of gum, a ballpoint pen and his belt.

MacGruber is a Saturday Night Live skit in which Will Forte plays a guy who tries to do exactly what MacGyver did, but fails.

Now, there would be absolutely no entertainment value at all to MacGruber if it weren’t for the existence of MacGyver.  One could easily argue that the producers of MacGruber should pay the producers of MacGyver for having taken their premise and turning it into a mockery.

Of course, MacGruber is a parody and should be protected from such a law suit.

In fact, I’ll bet the MacGruber people are already figuring out how much it is going to cost.

Giant Boobs, Pig-Faced Men and Shocking Violence – Now That’s a Book Promo

Publishers continue to make small forays into using short videos to promote their books.  This has taken every form from a simple talking head to an elaborate webseries.

According to AdRants, “Champagne-Fueled Jungle” a first novel by James Palumbo, is:

…about a society gone wrong. A society in which reality channel Shit TV (yes, that’s what it’s called) has overtaken the small screen and filled it with “homicidal dwarfs on rollerblades and obese mamas in tutus.” Title character, Tomas, has had enough and with the help of his tommy gun, he hopes to eradicate the world of this filth.

And if that doesn’t sound good enough for you, check out the lavishly animated promo video.  Beware, while entirely in black and white, the violence is quite graphic:

It’s great to see this level of attention and artistry dedicated to a book promotion.  Currently creeping near 4000 views, if just ten percent of viewers go get his book it would seem worthwhile.  Of course, that might be asking a lot from your average YouTube viewer.

Still, the combination of great animation and a violent, sexy story make this a video that could catch on and spread to some potential new readers Palumbo would never reach through traditional marketing.

Meet CinemaCube – An MPAA Nightmare

The device pictured to right is BrightView’s CinemaCube and, if they are aware of it’s existence, it is giving those in the MPAA nightmares.

The device plugs directly into a user’s TV and uses any USB storage device (from thumb drives to external hard drives) to store data. On the surface, that means you could watch your home movies or view photos.

The CinemaCube is also comes with a built-in BitTorrent client, meaning users can access the online file sharing service. It’s also networkable, letting users can grab files (ranging from music to video to photos) from a remote PC to view on their television.

The device, which supports HD content up to 720p and comes with an HDMI port, is on sale now for $89.99.   LINK

I don’t have much to add except that it’s one more reason the MPAA and the major movie studios should be spending more time a new distribution model than on suing sites like The Pirates Bay

The CIA, LSD, the Return of Urkel and Still No Viewers

A few years ago, the hot topic was web series being created by Hollywood outsiders.  This was going to be the big revolution where the little guys could finally show the big guys how it was done. After decades of sitting at home and screaming at the TV for being so dull and lifeless, fresh minds and cheap equipment combined with nearly free distrubtion was going to cause an entertainmain revolution.

Well, it didn’t quite happen that way. With a few exceptions such as LonelyGirl15, these series generally came out of the gates fast and fell off the cliff even faster.  Many failed simply because they were not entertaining.  While it is easy to criticize much of what is on TV, it is far harder to produce a superior product.  Others failed simply due to lack of exposure.  After pouring everything you’ve got into making your webseries, there is often little left over for marketing or PR.  Hoping to go viral was, and still remains, the way most webseries hope to find an audience.  This is not proving to be working.

The past year has seen a vast rise in the next wave of webseries: those being produced by professionals from the world of film and TV.  While still working with negligable budgets, experienced pros are getting together to make their own shows free from the contraints of major networks or unions or guilds.

Two examples of this are out right now.  “Road to the Alter” is a mockumentary starring Jaleel White, once the hottest kid on TV as Urkel on “Family Matters.”  The other is “Operation Midnight Climax,” a highly stylized fictionalization of the CIA’s early top secret LSD research.  Check out sample episodes of both below.

What’s more amazing than the amount of work and time that must have gone into these pieces, is just how few people are watching them.

“Road…” is only averaging 2000 views an episode on YouTube while “Operation…” has yet to crack 500 views.

Now, maybe it isn’t fair to judge the success of a webseries on its number of YouTube views but there is little else on which to judge popularity right now.

Either way, it is safe to say that neither is a runaway success.  This forces the question, what will it take to make a webseries into a popular success.

My money is on marketing.

The Myth of Cable’s “TV Everywhere” Plan

A bunch of news about Time Warner and Comcast beginning to roll out a service being called “TV Everywhere.”

TV Everywhere aims to put full-length cable programming online, but require viewers to prove that they have a cable subscription before they’re able to watch. Currently most full-length episodes from cable networks aren’t available on the web.    LINK

Of course, by everywhere, they mean on this one firewalled site.  Forget about downloading an episode and watching in your iPhone or saving it for offline viewing.

While it’s nice to see the cable companies trying to get more programming online, I’m not sure this is the solution that will save them from obsolesence in the coming years.

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