Of course Barack Obama’s inauguration is drawing huge attention–both national U.S. and worldwide–if nothing more than the U.S. has the opportunity to change in a completely new direction for the first time in eight years.
With huge attention comes huge online viewership. Services that stream decent content libraries like Hulu and Netflix Watch Instantly (even Joost canceled its software version and converted it to a web application version) have exploded in traffic growth throughout 2008–and according to Quantcast, leveled off after the election.
Looking at the evolution of online video since broadband Internet became more of a standard than a luxury, much has happened in terms of presentation and usability. French filmmaker Vincent Moon is founder and director of La Blogotheque, a showcase of his “Take Away” shows. These are weekly videos of an invited artist or band playing several live songs, often filmed in random places around Paris. Watch the Arcade Fire video above.
Vincent Moon’s latest venture is a website called “Temporary Areas,” where some of his content is presented through Flash in a full-screen map. Designed by dzlv studio, the website doesn’t follow the traditional website form, but is more of an art installation experience. He calls it a “map of streams,” which is appropriate to the viewing experience.
If you have a Netflix account, then you know what it’s all about. If you don’t, please reconsider subscribing if you love movies, or just easy to access video content. However, not even every Netflix subscriber may be taking full advantage of their accounts.
Netflix ‘Watch Instantly’ works best when you have a large flat panel monitor, or have your computer connected to your TV/entertainment system. Like Hulu.com, but without commercials and more studios/networks backing the content. Top videos include: Heroes, 30 Rock, The Office, Ratatouille, Superbad, Spiderman, Illusionist, etc. And now, an additional 8.21% of the market–Mac users–can enjoy their favorite entertainment content too. Check it out!
If you haven’t read The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, then stop now and read it. It will change the way you do business and approach your own time management, among many other benefits. It has helped me correct many productivity-sucking habits that formed seemingly on their own.
Too many to explore in one blog post (that’s why you read the whole book), writetodone recently posted an interview with the creator of this concept, Timothy Ferriss. Speaking about just a taste of his lifestyle design “guides,” although they apply to more traditional publishing there, they can be applied to any product–or yourself–that you’d like to promote. His viral/social marketing approach is equally applicable to those promoting their own work like photography and filmmaking, but also to anyone needing a career refreshment.
How can we watch “interactive television,” and what does this mean for the viewer? I was reading Steve Kilisky’s post on his Dynamic Media Blog and it got me reflecting about the increasingly blurring lines between television the Internet. It’s funny how the last few classes I’m taking at UCSC all discuss ways in which electronic media merge, overlap, or displace one another; all this questioning leads to a (mostly) unpredictable future for Television 2.0–similar to a recent grad’s?
Henry Jenkins analyzes this newer convergence culture, Lisa Parks talks about “microcasting” to niche audiences, and William Boddy adds to and interprets the results of the growing list of failed WebTV-like ventures. Where are we now? We have:
-user created content piped through a cable television station (Current TV)
-television distributed through the Internet & brought to your computer (Joost)
-content distributed through the Internet & brought to your TV (Apple TV)
We have all these different technologies grasping for similar goals. As Kilisky comments, much of interactive TV’s poor adoption has stemmed by a poor user experience. Perhaps progress has been made, but it’s difficult to tell. Newer technologies might encourage more “lean forward” viewing practices, but is that what the average television viewer wants? Is it even possible to successfully mix newer, Internet based technologies with the same old original television format?
Posted by Kyle Wiebalk on May 25, 2007 in distribution
These IMDb viewer’s statistics are taken at 9:30pm on opening day (Fri., 5/25/07). What disappoints me about about IMDb is the (perhaps unavoidable) user bias. Look at this graph up close, at 100% scale, and you can see the majority of users simply voted Pirates of the Carribean: At World’s End a “10,” which is really unrealistic for an average.
These have to be just the fans, who saw the movie on opening day. Look at the popularity by age group, too.
IMDb also has the statistics as males rated the film a median of 8.7, and females a median of 9.4. So does Pirates have more of a love theme than the previous two incarnations or what?
, then stop now and read it. It will change the way you do business and approach your own time management, among many other benefits. It has helped me correct many productivity-sucking habits that formed seemingly on their own.
