Blippr recently removed invite-only requirements and entered into public beta, launching with the latest release a number of new features and a complete redesign. My colleague Ernst-Jan pointed out that the service allowed users to recommend things like music and films by writing reviews or rating them, when he reviewed the site in February. I wondered, so what is the deal with Blippr? I am accustomed of listing them online on IMDB for years now, and browsed around the site rather pre-judged, only to be surprised with the web 2.0 ’schwing’ that Chris and Jonathan added to the media reviewing concept.
Pro’s:
I have been listing my favorite movies on IMDB’s ‘my-movie’ service for years, but recently started thinking of quitting since IMDB started asking money for their premium services. Blippr is totally free, and seems to generate income from sending people to Amazon to buy all the media their friends recommend.
Blippr is not just another social network, they currently allow users to integrate within the context of other social networks. Currently, the application allows users to post their ‘blips’ with Twitter, Friendfeed and Facebook.
The site allows users to import lists from Amazon’s wishlist, Goodreads and Librarything.
Con’s:
I wasn’t surprised to find out that IMDB doesn’t allow users to export their data. But a web 2.0 service like Blippr should support open data! I can’t export my carefully entered data.
From my top ten movies, five were found! The site has difficulties with foreign movies, something IMDB has covered with the wide spread community. Can’t they integrate the titles from IMDB?
I would recommend to check the site out, at least to see the great reviews of different media. And with some effort, the site is able to recommend you with some new media for this weekend!
Good news for alternative movie fanatics out there, Raindance Festival has launched raindance.tv earlier this year and reports that they secured about € 600.000 ($1 million) to accelerate their online operations. The website also signed distribution deals with 8 partners to facilitate the movies to the public.
For those in the blue: Raindance is a well known and (16-year) old film festival for movie outsiders, indies and movie rejects. The festival has hosted an impressive list of guests and filmmakers, including: Christopher Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins), Shane Meadows (Dead Man’s Shoes, This Is England), Ken Loach (Kes, Ae Fond Kiss), Marky Ramone (The Ramones), Iggy Pop, Andrea Arnold (Red Road), Quentin Tarantino, and Lou Reed.
10 months after launch, Raindance.tv is filled with indie short and features films. The low-budget film distributor signed with partners to provide the content, including Daily Motion, Vuze and Joost to provide the content. The video platform license and pay filmmakers royalties from any revenues earned, be it through advertising or pay per view. Elliot Grove, founder of the Raindance Film Festival and the British Independent Film Awards, will act as a senior consultant to the company.
There is a large group of people who think that the future of the web is in mobile. Mobile applications, mobile websites, mobile gadgets and mobile technologies. Although I agree that mobile is an interesting market I’m just not that excited by it. Sure, everything will become mobile. But everything will also become bigger, faster and more interactive.
There are some opportunities there but as far as I can tell this is just a natural extension or next step for the web and not a whole new phenomena that changes everything. In a way the iPhone is a nice illustration for this. It has a ‘normal’ web browser and there is no need to enhance (or dumb down) your website to make it look good on this device. And sure, location based information is cool. But how cool is it exactly? The examples (”find a restaurant near you!!!”) are often dull and not very scalable (how often do YOU actually need to find a restaurant near you?).
Still, a lot of people are going to make a lot of money with new mobile applications and I’m sure that right now I just miss the imagination to see where this is all leading us to. I wouldn’t be the first:
‘In the 1980s, McKinsey & Co forecast a world maket of 900,000 phones by the year 2000. Today, 900,000 handsets are sold every three days’.
Here is a nice video that illustrates the evolution of mobile phones since 1985. Besides the cute images there are also some great quotes, like the one above, in there:
Oh, who can tell me (without looking it up in the IMDB!) what the first movie was that featured a mobile phone?
There is an interesting viral coming up on Youtube. A guy calling himself Eric Brody started a video blog a few weeks ago and has been uploading simple video’s about his new job, how bored he is and how he hopes to meet women online though his blog. Then, yesterday,in an angry post he told his audience he was fired from his job and was sent home with a box with his belongings. So far nothing exciting.
But today he uploaded a video titled ‘case 1017′ which he says he found in his box with personal belongings. It shows a weird scene, filmed in secret, of an apparent cover-up, somewhere in the US. There is the usual muffled sound, gunshots and shaky camera movements. As noted in the comments the video looks just slightly too good to be a home video so we can assume this is a viral video in the style of Cloverfield or even The Blair Witch Project. Or maybe it isn’t. Check it out yourself.
The ‘Fired from work, found a disk’ video (watched only 120 times)
The Case 1017 video (watched 120.000 times):
What I find interesting is that the movie industry is turning movies into something bigger than just the experience of going to a theatre for a 2 hours. George Lucas was one of the first, or most prolific, directors embracing merchandising which turned his movies into a starting point for a lot of kids who then spent years playing with their star wars inspired toys. Making up new episodes in their own heads along the way.
Now the movie becomes ‘just’ a part of a story. One day the characters in movies might start their existence years in advance with virtual characters on Facebook, fake movies on YouTube and real Google Ranks and online identities. The movie will then look and feel more like a documentary which will make it less clear where reality ends and fantasy begins. With Cloverfield and maybe ‘Case 1017′ we will see this movement begin where the Internet is not just used as a promotional medium but as a way to tell a cross-media story.
Its quality is debatable, the acting is bad and the jokes are childish. But you can’t help but smile while watching this movie. I actually watched it twice! So far, it has been viewed 120.000 times in Youtube and received over 9000 diggs. I guess the makers hit a nerve with the internet audience. Wonder what you think about it:
The following movie was created by Geert Desager who works as a trade Marketing Manager for Microsoft. The movie is beautiful and it is hard to believe that Microsoft came up with this. Even Geert seems to wonder about that openly on his blog. He writes:
“by the end of the month, I’ll be able to tell you whether I still work as a Marketing Manager at Microsoft, or whether this project finally turned itself against me”
Now watch the movie:
Considering that the movie has won its first award and is being referenced on thousands of blogs by now I’m pretty sure that he is going to be at Microsoft for a long time.
On the other hand… aah no, lets be optimistic and friendly for a chance.
I didn’t think I would ever write these words, but here we go: Thank you Microsoft!
UPDATE: Geert left a comment here to tell us that Microsoft didn’t fire his ass but handed him an award and shipped him off to Singapore. Good for him!
Written on 25th July 2008
5 COMMENTS 
Good news for alternative movie fanatics out there, Raindance Festival has launched 
Written on 17th May 2008
There is a large group of people 
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