Archive of thenextweb.com
It appears that Apple might be putting together a TV subscription package for iTunes. If true, let’s hope they do this the right way.
For $30 per month it would appear that you would get access to whole networks’ output rather than individual shows. All Things Digital suggests that Apple has been touting the idea to a number of TV networks but that none have yet come on board.
It’s understandable that networks may be cautious of the deal. While iTunes already offers subscriptions to individual seasons of shows, TV executives will be wary of the dominant position Apple has in the digital music business. The last thing they will want is Apple muscling in too far on yet another market.
That said, online TV is already developing into a big business without a large Apple presence. Hulu and YouTube have shown that there’s a market for monetised online consumption, albeit via advertising. Giving Apple a little bit more of the pie may have huge benefits for an industry desperate to make up for falling advertising revenue through harnessing unmet online demand.
Let’s do this properly – internationally (more…)
The original ‘Shift Happens‘ presentation by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Brenman was turned into a video and uploaded to YouTube in June 2007. The video was then remixed and set over a Fat Boy Slim soundtrack, becoming a serious YouTube hit called ‘Did You Know?‘ and attracted over 6.5m views.
A new / updated version of the Did You Know film, appropriately called “Did You Know 4.0?” has now been created for the Economist’s Media Convergence forum in October:
[youtube width="650" height="450"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNy1×5VTX6Q[/youtube]
Amusingly, a parody version of the video was created in July, but you’ll need to watch till the end to find out 70% of the facts in the presentation, are in fact made up.
There are lots of uses of Twitter that smack of lame bandwagon-jumping. This definitely isn’t one – live commentaries for TV shows via Twitter.
US TV network Fox is to spice up its forthcoming repeats of Fringe and Glee with tweets from the show’s cast and producers as the show goes out. The tweets will be displayed along the bottom of the screen during the show, and viewers can submit questions via Twitter using @ replies to @FRINGEonFOX and @GLEEonFOX. (more…)
Next time some media exec complains about BitTorrent users hurting their profits show them this chart.
Based on a study by Frank N. Magid Associates and published by AdAge, it shows that users of BitTorrent client Vuze spend more than average on a wide range of media-related items from expensive TVs and games consoles to smartphones and PCs.
Now, this is money spent on hardware, not actual media, but with many of the biggest media companies having their feet in both the content creation and hardware businesses that might not be a bad thing. Maybe funding content creation through premium hardware sales isn’t a bad idea. After all, you can pirate a movie but you can’t pirate an HDTV to watch it on.
It’s widely seen as a joke of a social network these days but friend reconnection service Friends Reunited may be about to show that it isn’t a huge waste of investment money after all. The diamond in its rough may turn out to be its oft-forgotten sister site aimed at building users’ family trees. What’s more, a buyer may be announced by tomorrow morning.
Back in the days before Facebook, Friends Reunited was a popular service in the UK for helping old schoolfriends and work colleagues get back in touch with each other. Its initial business model was to allow free browsing of the site but to charge a small fee if you wanted to get in touch with anyone via the site. Then Facebook came along and did everything Friends Reunited did but in a slicker, cooler and more richly-featured package… for free. (more…)
The BBC is inviting you to ‘remix’ interviews with technology innovators, including Maholo’s Jason Calacanis, as the second edition of their R&D TV show goes live.
Created by BBC Backstage, the Corporation’s developer network, R&D TV is the first step in allowing viewers to legally re-edit professionally-produced footage into new forms.
BBC Backstage are hoping that this episode will prove more popular than the previous one, which resulted in only one video mashup from the public. The problem here is that while the video may be interesting to some people (readers of TheNextWeb will probably enjoy it without re-editing it) it’s not something that cries out to be reworked.
R&D TV is an innovative idea, but one that comes from a department at the BBC that’s a little like Morgan Freeman’s character in Batman Begins. They’re working on great projects, but not always with a great deal of support from the wider corporation.
Speaking at the June meeting of Manchester’s Social Media Cafe on Tuesday, BBC Backstage Senior Producer Ian Forrester discussed the project in detail. Many attendees asked why they hadn’t put a popular show like The Apprentice online for remixing. Sadly, there’s little chance of that as licensing deals mean that everything from music to many of the staff on the show would need to be paid for again.
Part of the problem is that some of the BBC’s TV producers and management aren’t keen on the idea of throwing footage out to the public to use as they please. Until there’s a culture shift within mainstream media, projects like R&D TV will remain nothing more than quirky side-projects.
This is a shame. Artists like Cassette Boy are showing that people will remix TV footage whether you let them or not; just see his Apprentice reworking for proof of that. The sooner the TV industry embraces this idea the better. This kind of cut-up TV art would make great promotional material for the show itself, not to mention brilliant training material for rookie video editors.
In the meantime, you can get hold of R&D TV here. The footage is available in a variety of formats and can be used in any non-commercial project.
MTV has announced a fresh take on their old Total Request Live format that incorporates a heavy reliance on Social Media for audience interaction. The youth TV giant has engaged in formal partnerships with Twitter and Facebook for It’s On with Alexa Chung.
The host, who is well known in the UK as a former model-turned-presenter, is making her American debut in a show that will use Twitter on-screen to encourage the audience to get involved. Content from Facebook and Youtube will also be integral to the format.
What’s striking is that MTV’s partnership with Facebook involves a revenue-sharing deal that the Twitter deal doesn’t. Cnet reports that the Facebook deal includes selling “sponsorship packages that encompass both TV spots and social-media ads”. The Twitter deal sees Twitter building a back-end for MTV to use without any money changing hands.
Now, you could argue that as Twitter is still ‘pre-revenue’ they’re more interested in building their reputation in the broadcast media business at the moment. That’s probably the case; after all this is the second Twitter-based TV show that’s come to light this week. Still, it must hurt Ev, Biz and co. a little to see Facebook brokering a sweet deal while they work for free.
It’s On with Alexa Chung launches on MTV in the USA on June 15th.
Get the popcorn and let’s watch the battle. The court battle, that is, because The Pirate Bay (should I put the link to their site or not?) was finally dragged to the court this Monday by the Swedish authorities, The Guardian says.
The Pirate Bay is the most known torrent (BitTorrent) tracker out there (over one million of them and 22 million users). As we all know, many of these torrents are illegal because it allows to download free software/music/games for which you would otherwise have to pay.
The Pirate Bay doesn’t host any of these free media but it indexes (like Google does) the torrents which tracks to these media. It indexes also legally downloadable media (again, like Google does).
The lawsuit is led by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and they are claiming 100 million dollars in damage. The founders of The Pirate Bay – Fredik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi – could face two years in prison. But that’s not all. The dotcom millionaire Carl Lundström, one of the donors of The Pirate Bay, is also charged.
The Swedish police and the US government wanted repeteadly to shut down the service but without much success.
Could this trial be the end on The Pirate Bay, at last?
UPDATE
According to TorrentFreak 50% of the charges against The Pirate Bay were dropped in the second day of the trial. Fredrik Neij, one of the founders, said that the prosecution misunderstood the technology, and told the court that the evidence doesn’t show that the Pirate Bay’s trackers are used.
So, the prosecutor had o drop all charges relating to “assisting copyright infringement”, so the remaining charges are simply ‘assisting making available’. “Everything related to reproduction will be removed from the claim,” he said.
Let’s see what the next day will bring up…
It’s always painful to read about job cuts at U.S. newspapers. But the news became even more painful when I spotted mashup Paper Cuts. This mashup shows how many layoffs and buyouts U.S. newspapers have to suffer from. According to Paper Cuts more than 13.748 people in the newspaper industry lost their job in 2008. And new layoffs and buyouts are reported almost every week…
When will we see foldable e-paper on the street? Will advanced algorithms and Internet eventually put publishers out of business? – Nobody knows… But we do witness a devastating momentum for traditional publishers, how can these companies reinvent themselves? Are they doomed?
Chosun media, showing off newspaper 2.0
Doomed? Not by a long shot! at least, if we have to believe the marketing manager of Chosun. Chosun is a Korean newspaper giant, based in the heart of Seoul. I have to admit, I never heard of the company before I visited them today. But like many unknown Asian companies, Chosun is a prominent player with amazing proportions, newspaper circulation surpasses that of well-known newspapers like the USA today. The marketing manager believes that businesspeople will always appreciate an edited and selected overview on the daily hot topics. And if it isn’t on paper, it would be on a different medium. And as much as I like to argue the contrary, he might have a point. Financial Times recently announced that their amount of online (paying) subscribers is increasing fast. We got a tour at the HQ, and they actually got excited of the Nintendo Wii again! (has been a long time) (read more)
