deinde

+bravia paint

Just brilliant...well done.

Watch///

+nm: socialight

Here is an interesting new company called Socialight. They have created software that enables you to create virtual Sticky Notes anywhere in the real world and share them with others.

Socialight is a community that lets you create, share, and discover virtual Sticky Notes placed anywhere in the real world. You can create local Stickies just for yourself or for everyone. You can create a personal map, complete with pictures, videos and sound clips, or you can share a group map with friends.

As you travel around the world, you can find Sticky notes that are tied to the places you go. Socialight can notify you on your mobile phone any time you're near a Sticky. As your phone buzzes, it will display the Sticky, and you can check out some background on the person who set it. From there, you can instantly respond, leave your own Sticky, or just move on.

It's still in beta, but you can check it out here.

More///

+portable film festival

Here is the Portable Film Festival, it is a international festival of short films just for portable devices.

Sony PSPs, iPod videos, 3G phones, laptop screens, you name it. Sixty films have been pre-selected from Australia, New Zealand, the US, the UK, Canada, India, Papua New Guinea and South Africa. Submissions include video-clips, documentaries, experimental films, animations, regular short narratives and works of genius by people under 18. Films will compete through an open vote by punters who will review, argue and score the films online. And it’s all free. Sign up and get ready to download, sideload and catch the videocast.

Here///

+wom: hollywood style

Here is an interesting article about how word-of-mouth is affecting movies today like it did in the 70's. The only difference -- technology -- it's making it possible to instantly affect a movie. It can make a small budgeted movie spread from seven theaters to 691 theaters in four weeks (Little Miss Sunshine) or turn a heavily promoted film into a dud (Snakes on a Plane).

The life cycle of a word-of-mouth movie depends on its ability to ride a wave of critical success into more and more theaters, the inverse of the typical big summer movie that comes out instantly in thousands of theaters and often vanishes in a couple of weeks. Unlike special-effects-laden star vehicles, word-of-mouth releases often cost a fraction of the typical summer movie and have much smaller marketing budgets.

The wrong kind of word of mouth can be devastating. When Sony released "Monster House" earlier this summer, the animated movie collected some of the season's best reviews and opened to a respectable $22.2 million. But in its second weekend, the film slipped nearly 48%. Sony believes the sharp drop-off was largely attributable to parents' telling other parents that "Monster House" was too intense for small children. Thanks to that don't-dare-take-your-6-year-old advice, the film collapsed more than 40% the next three weekends, and was soon history.

"Instant communications technology has completely changed the role of word of mouth," says Nancy Utley, chief operating officer for "Little Miss Sunshine" distributor Fox Searchlight. "Word of mouth used to be confined to cities. Now, thanks to e-mail, it crosses continents. It's revolutionized what word of mouth means."

More///

 

+flavorpill

Here is an article at Business Week about Flavorpill, an online publisher of a weekly email magazine covering a hand-picked selection of music, art, and cultural events. They currently publish weekly email magazines in NYC, LA, SF, Chicago and London. When they commissioned 10 artists to design ads for Budweiser Select to be placed on their own sites and weekly email magazines, they accidental became an agency according to Jon Fine. The ads have become liked so much, they will eventually become a multi-city outdoor campaign.

Thus a small media company started out selling its audience and cool quotient, which is old news, but ended up designing ads that will run more widely, which is new. Flavorpill's moves describe a fresh reality of marketing: The line between which entity creates media and which creates advertising is suddenly and strangely malleable.

More///
More///

+future of gaming

Here is an interesting article about Electronic Arts COO David Gardner in which he outlines seven predictions for the future of gaming.

1. Female gaming: "We've been talking about this for a long time, but it's a market we need to crack."
2. In-game advertising: "The debate ends this year. It's here, let's get on with it. In-game advertising adds credibility depending on the product."
3. Multi-tasking: "All media are seeking ways to attract the multi-tasking media generation. The casual gamer is more of a free-roaming consumer, and in order to attract that consumer, game makers might have to be more flexible."
4. New talent: "New talent will fast-track on a much shorter learning curve. Writers and artists from other media will make a bigger impact. Students from universities who have grown up with games are creating great innovations."
5. Legislation: "More legislation attacking games will take place, despite recent victories against it. Game makers have an obligation to understand what we are building and explain that to consumers and to their parents."
6. User-created content: "Developers will encourage user-created content as a feature. Open environments like YouTube and MySpace have created a Wild West out there, but the game industry can provide controlled environments backed up by an economic universe where the content is either paid for or adds to the game experience."
7. Britain's role: "Britain can help lead the industry creatively. He joked that great games rarely come from a good climate, and pointed to standout British gaming contributions such as Tomb Raider and Grand Theft Auto."

More///

+fwa: favourite website awards

Check out The FWA: Favourite Website Awards.

Here///

+youtube + music videos

It appears YouTube wants to become the MTV of Web 2.0. They are trying to develop a business model with record labels to legally offer new music videos and past videos. YouTube already offers many copyrighted music videos. Apparently the labels realize they could eventually make some money of this.

"What we really want to do is in six to 12 months, maybe 18 months, to have every music video ever created up on YouTube," co-founder Steve Chen told Reuters. "We're trying to bring in as much of this content as we can on to the site."

More///

+flickr + youtube

Here is an interesting post at influxinsights taking a look at the similarities of Flickr and YouTube.

1. Do Something Better: Find a way or a better way for people to do something they want to do- in both these cases- it's sharing digital assets

2. Believe in What You Do: It's not about a money making/get rich quick scheme. You believe there's a better way and you are going to work it out. Success is a by-product of doing good.

3. Community is Everything: Listen to your community. This is not a one way conversation- there's on-going dialog relating to "policing", standards and ideas

4. Be Soulful: Even if you sell, like Flickr, don't sell your soul. The honest, no frills approach is right. Interestingly, while many thought the Yahoo purchase would lead to the the demise of Flickr, instead, they turned out to be much more of an influence on Yahoo than could have ever been predicted.

5. Be Authentic: These companies look like they have banned or never even heard of the phrases "brand strategy" and "marketing plan?. The lack of corporate polish adds to the feeling that there are real people behind the idea.

More///

+a look at mainstream media

Here is Chris Anderson's (author of The Long Tail) latest statistical look at mainstream entertainment and media.

DOWN

• TV: network TV had its lowest ratings week ever in July.
• Music: weekly album sales set a 10-year low in July. For the year, CD album sales are down 4.2%; although digital single downloads (still less than 10% of the business) are up 77% and are nearly making up the difference in revenue terms.
• Radio: the music radio listening audience is down 8.5% this year alone, continuing a multi-decade decline.
• DVDs: shipments are down 4% so far this year, more than 30 million units behind the same period last year.
• Newspapers: circulation, which peaked in 1987, is declining faster than ever and is down another 2.6% so far this year.

MIXED

• Magazines: ad revenues are up 3.7% although the total number of ad pages is flat (they're charging more per page). Newsstand sales are at an all-time low, while total circulation was down 0.3% last year.
• Books: up slightly so far this year (but still lagging behind overall retail growth).

UP

• Box Office: is up by 5.8% so far this year (but still down 4.2% from 2004).
• Videogames: The long slump caused by the next-gen hardware transition (Xbox-to-Xbox 360 and PS2-to-forthcoming-PS3) seems to have finally ended. June sales were up 25%.
• Internet advertising: is on pace to grow by 21% this year. Google's revenues grew by 77% in the most recent quarter.

More///