Boston Media Makers, March 2, 2008

Here are some highlights from the March 2, 2008 meeting of Boston Media Makers.

Read more

Open Television Network lauched to serve the fat middle of the long tail

The Open Television Network (OTN) was launched last month with the goal of providing a distribution network for the “fat middle” of the Long Tail, helping to build a “middle class” of media publishers. It’s a framework that allows small media producers to sell video through iTunes using RSS feeds. And that’s the clever twist behind their approach.
Read more

Comcast does not want public voices heard

On Monday, February 25, 2008 the FCC held a public hearing, hosted by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society on the campus of Harvard Law School. It turns out that Comcast was paying people to fill seats in the Ames Courtroom to prevent net neutrality supporters from participating in the dialog.
Read more

Kaltura: Wiki meets YouTube by way of Yochai Benkler

One of the most interesting presentations at the Web Video Summit today was Shay David, Chief Technology Officer of Kaltura, talking about their business, which they summarize in one phrase as “Wiki meets YouTube.”

Their site provide a set of tools that allows groups of users to collaborate online in the creation and remixing of rich media. They are capturing the synergy between two macro trends, peer production and video sharing. Kaltura offers an SDK and is engaging partners to build collaborative video authoring capabilities into their sites. Among their goals is to build the largest network of remixable materials. I think this would be of interest to video journalists, documentary filmmakers, and mission based organizations. I also find it very interesting that Shay is inspired by the ideas of shared cultural production which have been eloquently articulated by Yochai Benkler.

Time viewers spend on then net is rivaling TV time

An IBM survey of consumer behavior, reported by the Hollywood Reporter in the article “Study: TV is taking a back seat” by Georg Szalai, documents that the time consumers spend on the Internet is rivaling their TV time. I took away two interesting data points from the article: First is that “consumers are divided over their preferences for free online content with ads or subscription fee-based content without commercials. About a third is for free content, but about 20% are willing to pay for the HBO-style model” according to the IBM report. Second is the stark numbers documenting television’s decline as our primary media device, according to the survey, “19% of respondents said they spend six hours or more each day on personal Internet usage. That compares with 8% who said so about the TV. One to four hours of TV usage was reported by 66%, compared with 60% for the Web.” Any netizen understands this trend, and it reflects my own experience, but it often takes numerous reports of stark numbers to wake up the sleeping giants. And when they awake, it will be an awakeing of “Jurrasic Park” proportions, although, in the end, the smaller, smarter, nimbler little creatures win out in the end. We’ll see how it plays out.

Boston Media Makers, Meeting Notes, December 2, 2007

It was another inspiring, interesting, and entertaining meeting of the Boston Media Makers , which has become carved in stone in my calendar for the first Sunday of every month. We meet at Sweet Finnish in Jamaica Plain with founder and master of ceremonies Steve Garfield.

Read more

Web Video: Move Over, Amateurs

I read an article today in BusinessWeek by Catherine Holahan titled, “Web Video: Move Over, Amateurs” that claims that “as more professionally produced content finds a home online, user-generated video becomes less alluring to viewers—and advertisers,” and while this may be true, in part, and certainly makes pundits like Andrew Keen (author of The Cult of the Amateur) happy, I think that no matter how you slice it, the rules will be different with internet video and there are still many opportunities yet to be explored and user generated content ((I’m not thrilled with the term user generated content, in spite of Keen’s demonization of the term, Amateur, as in someone who does something out of love rather than money, is a apt term, but I digress…)) is here to stay. Of course this article follows on the coat tails of the premiere of “Quarterlife,” the new made for internet episodic from Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, the creative team behind “My So-Called Life” and “thirtysomething.” There are several aspects of “Quarterlife” that I find particularly interesting in terms of the change that’s going on in the media industry: first, the show sets a new standard for web video with network-television production values, second: the storytelling and acting is better than 98% of network television, and third, the show is owned and controlled by its creators. This is old media reinventing itself with a new set of rules. Just as “thirtysomething” raised the standard for production values and storytelling in episodic television, I think “Quarterlife” will do the same for fictional internet video. If “Quarterlife” draws in an enthusiastic audience and generous advertising revenue, it could be among the first proof points that it’s possible to produce a financially viable fictional episodic on the web.

Reframe Offers a New Model for Online Film Distribution

We’re finally right in the midsts of the digital media distribution inflection point. Several key trends that have pushed us along include: 1. the ubiquity of digital media and computation, 2. widespread adoption of high-speed internet connections in middle-class households, 3. dramatic improvements in video codecs (H.264), and 4. the popularity of viewing video on the web, fueled by sites like YouTube and Joost. We’re also at a point where a critical mass of media caretakers, rights owners, and media makers are seriously exploring the avenues available for them for digital distribution. There is no shortage of players who are trying to take old media business models and cash in on digital distribution (e.g. Jaman , iTunes , et al.) as well as a whole legion of start-ups experimenting with more interesting business model variations (e.g.Jalipo, Caachi , et al.) and then there are some folks who are thinking more along new lines (e.g. Participatory Culture Foundation , Renew Media , et al.).
Read more

The Cost of Copyright Confusion for Media literacy

The Center for Social Media has released a new report titled, “The Cost of Copyright Confusion for Media literacy” which is available as a pdf download. The report sheds light on the fact that media literacy education is compromised by unnecessary copyright restrictions and lack of understanding about copyright law. Copyright law permits a wide range of uses of copyrighted material without permission or payment. Educational exemptions sit within the realm of fair use, however, far too many educators don’t have a good understanding of what constitutes acceptable fair use practices.

Information R/evolution

Here’s the sequel to Michael Wesch’s Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us, which I blogged about a while back and another example of using the medium of the web to communicate ideas about the web, I’m sure this one will spread just as the first one did. Thought provoking, yes, but it still takes a book like The Wealth of Networks or Understanding Media to get the complexities of the issues across.

Next Page »