CMS.610: Understanding Creative Industries: Blog

Burn, Barbie, Burn!

2005-12-18T23:08:00.000-08:00

Here is a short article summarizing a small study about how some girls ages 7-11 burn, microwave, decapitate, and otherwise disfigure their Barbie dolls. From the article:

Many girls thought it "cool" to mutilate Barbie because she was just a "plastic" doll, according to the Bath University study of 100 youngsters.

Dr Agnus Nairn said: "It's as though disavowing Barbie is a rite of passage."

The article also points out that boys of the same age generally do no such thing to their "action figures."

CLOSED

2005-12-18T20:43:00.000-08:00

This class is now officially over. The work on media research continues at the Convergence Culture blog. The final projects were:

We will be back next year.

content trumps media channels

2005-12-17T11:09:00.000-08:00

CBS said that it is focusing on content in order to generate more revenue, as opposed to alternate distribution channels. It said that it is still focusing on putting tv shows onto ipods and that it will continue to do so, but it believed that old media is not quite dead and it's shows are its key asset. It will still pursue its partnerships with Verizon's V Cast video, Comcast video-on-demand. CBS also wants to expand their media properties and create spin-offs (such as the CSI spinoffs) and use those to make more money.

article here: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001699724

ex my-space executive launches video storate service

2005-12-17T10:54:00.000-08:00

Brad Greenspan, one of the former executives of MySpace, has launced a new video storage service thats lets users upload their videos to the site and then link it to their personal websites or blogs. The site has about 600,000 visitors per day and has done no marketing at all. The creator says he aims to expand the site and make it family-friendly. I think this is a great idea since I dont know of any one site that would allow families to upload their home videos to share with relatives. I think the site has great potential.

Full story from Businessweek: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_52/b3965027.htm

Google buys 5% of AOL

2005-12-17T10:47:00.000-08:00

Google is buying 5% of AOL for $1 billion. They outbid Microsoft and plan on giving AOL a bunch of benefits. They are currently the search engine of choice for AOL, and under the new agreement they will give AOL free advertising to promote all of its channels. AOL will also be able to sell banner ads on Google and keep 20% of the profits (Google will get the other 80%).

This should be interesting, especially since Google and AOL also have some competing services which this partnership is supposed ot promote, such as Google Maps and AOL's Mapquest. Hopefully this partnership enables them to better their content and provide more for their combined audience.

Full story in Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/16/AR2005121601892.html

EA Enters Mobile Game Space

2005-12-16T14:36:00.000-08:00

Electronic Arts agreed to pay $680 million to acquire Jamdat Mobile, a mobile game publisher. The acquisition is expected to compensate for the slow growth in video game sales by expanding into the accelerating market of cell phone games. Jamdat has about 100 games on the market in 40 countries with 90 carriers.
I am somewhat dismayed by the fact that I keep seeing the same old companies branching out into all these different media formats. I was hopeful that media convergence would bring out about new possibilities for consumer engagement and broad participation by people with stake in media. Instead, all the big companies are buying up everything that could possibly have any value, that could possibly be exciting. Not to say that big media companies can't be innovative, but I feel like the range of ideas is being limited by their ruthless market entrances and acquisitions. Maybe it's just me though.

Porn on the Go

2005-12-16T14:00:00.000-08:00

Cingular may have opened a Pandora's Box recently by launching filtering devices and password-enabled blockers for mobile adult content. Presumably, the absence of these types of controls has kept mobile porn from taking off here in the US. Globally, mobile porn sales hit $1 billion in 2005. There is little doubt there is a market for it. Already, content providers are lining up to give it to consumers raw (sorry couldn't help it). In late January, the first Mobile Adult Content Congress trade show will take place in Miami. Already, people are getting aroused, I mean, excited, I mean, enthusiastic.
Of course, this begs the question should mobile content be regulated, especially given the fact that kids are acquiring cell phones at younger and younger ages. If so, who does the regulating? Even given content ratings and parental controls, family groups say most parents don't monitor what their children download and they definitely don't know what other kids will do. Little Jimmy going over Cindy's house to watch Toy Story may have a completely different meaning in a few years. And here I thought, I just wanted to make a phone call while away from my house. Guess I was mistaken.

about this blog and mobile video use projections

2005-12-16T13:46:00.000-08:00

Here is my final entry.
First, I would to say that this blog has been very interesting. At first I was sceptical of the idea since I never done blogging before). But, over time this evolved into a pool of resources for me. Instead of going all over the net, I found this blog a central place for news on digital media/entertainment/advertising developments. Hence, I want to thank everyone for contributing to it. Even if we did it to satisfy the reqs for the course, it still proved to be a really cool thing!!!!!!!!!!

Second, here is small article about the estimated use of mobile video.
Research projects the use of video on mobile in US to reach 15 mln mark by 2009. Exciting, huh?

Happy holidays, everyone!!!!!!!!

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/interactive/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001699335

Kids Groups and Digital TV Strikes a Deal

2005-12-16T12:58:00.000-08:00

Children's advocacy groups and media industry representatives struck a deal to provide more educational programming for children. The deal would also limit the use of the Internet for promotional tie-ins. Under current rules, TV broadcasters must air 3 hours a week of educational programming for children 16 years of age or younger. Next month, new FCC rules will take effect that mandate 3 hours of educational programming on each of the five channels that networks can multicast using digital technology. These rules may limit networks' ability to air live sports, among other things.
The deal between children's groups and networks allows companies to preempt educational programming for live sports as well as promote other children's shows without having it count towards the time limit on paid advertising during educational shows. In addition, many media companies have started offering family channel packages.
This need for educational programming validates the work we've been doing all semester. The kidspace is in sore need of media properties that intellectually and socially enrich kids. These properties increasingly need to be able transmit across different media, as is evidenced in this article by the desire of media companies to transport kids' TV characters on the Web. It's interesting how the technological advancement of digital TV is bringing this discussion to the forefront. Parents now have more power to limit what their kids watch. And if the FCC allows channel purchasing on a channel by channel basis, which they're currently looking into, this could have far-reaching implications for how our children grow up.

Advertising and Television for Children

2005-12-16T09:57:00.000-08:00

In two weeks, new FCC restrictions on advertising aimed at children were to take effect. However, AdAge reports today that broadcasters, marketers, and media companies have reached an agreement that modifies some of the restrictions.

From the article: "As originally adopted, the FCC’s new children’s advertising rule would have forced broadcasters to start counting program promotions in shows aimed at children under 13 against commercial limits of 12 minutes per hour on weekdays and 10.5 minutes per hour on weekends, essentially reducing available ad time. In addition, media companies would have been banned from showing Web addresses linking to pages in which program characters sold products. Finally, the rule would have limited broadcasters’ ability to pre-empt children's programming. Broadcasters are required to provide three hours of children's programming a week."

The new agreement introduces some key exceptions, among which are:

Broadcasters can run program promotions in children's shows without counting against commercial time - if the promotions are for other children's shows

Program characters can sell products on websites as long as those individual pages are not mentioned during the television show

video blogging is getting big

2005-12-16T08:41:00.000-08:00

WSJ continues to cover the DIY media this week. So, today there is an article about vlogging - video blogging which is growing very fast. The idea is stemming from the user generated content... Couple of thoughts I found very interesting... CIO of Verizon Communication calls vlogging "the rise of creative nation". More personalized content is what people long for and are willing to participate. Some of the sites are: travelvlog.blogspot.com with some videos of people travelling to amazing places. Or, a mini show of one guy who films his household with his wife... "The show is inits 51st episode". I found it is very funny, yet the consequences are yet hard to assess. Consider the political arena... Boston City Councilor John Tobin keeps his own vlog, for example votejohntobin.com/blog/videos...

MySpace Music Gives Artists A Whole New Way To Find An Audience: But Is It Working?

2005-12-16T07:26:00.000-08:00

http://www.longislandpress.com/?cp=40&show=article&a_id=6453

MySpace, a two-year-old social-networking website, ranks fourth Internet-wide in page views, surpassing such age-old megaliths as Google and AOL, according to Media Metrix, the audience-measurement service provided by research firm comScore. Its ubiquity was enough to impress Rupert Murdoch, who acquired MySpace's parent, Intermix Media, Inc., this past July for a price tag of $580 million. One of its most popular features is MySpace Music, where sundry musical acts can upload songs on the site's stand-alone media player, contact their fan bases and premiere upcoming albums for free. It's not just for pop and rock acts, though: Modern classical favorites Kronos Quartet have a MySpace page; so does the Kings Park High School Jazz Band

Key to the success of myspace is the fact that artists have no restriction on space (like a record store) or time (like the radio) and is available to all who care to take the time to fill out the online ofrms to acquire the space.. thus it has functioned as the launching point for many new band's musical careers.

Busking for Stardom What matters for buzz bands these days is becoming the next blog thing

2005-12-16T07:20:00.000-08:00

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/06/02/class-bemis.php

The infrastructure for supporting larger-than-life acts has disappeared

By contrast, the Internet’s ability to transmit music has solidified. Run through a chronology of the past decade’s most notable Internet music stories, and you’ll notice the media have been chattering about infrastructure, not artistry. Amazon.com opened up the much-trumpeted “long tail,” making the back catalogs of labels and other publishers more accessible than ever before. Napster and MP3.com created a big bang of peer-to-peer piracy, freeing music from the packaged-goods delivery system that defined the medium in the 20th century. Finally, Apple has convincingly shown how the music business might be able to sell its properties in a world without that physical product.

The year 2005 marked a clear shift from the era of airwaves to the era of iPods. The digital landscape has been laid; the critical apparatus necessary to govern its borders is settling into place. It’s a hierarchy of Web zines, MP3 blogs, podcasts, and message boards with peculiar names like Music for Robots, Coolfer, Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan and Tracks Up the Tree. An artist can make or break a career via a thousand different sites that are insignificant on their own, but together quite powerful. Even the majors have realized this. New albums by Neil Diamond and Madonna debuted on MySpace.com.

The people who were making paper zines 10 years ago were reaching five people at a time,” explains Hall. “They reached a certain amount of people, but it was hard to continually reach new people. These days, those same people are doing stuff online, have less overhead and reach 5,000 people. All you need is a link, and bang, you’re there. It’s totally viral.”

China sees 2.47 million trademark registrations

2005-12-16T07:09:00.000-08:00

http://english.people.com.cn/200512/15/eng20051215_228277.html

The chinese government is working hard to protect trademark registrations and the cognizance of internationally recognized trademarks. of the 2.47 million registered trademarks as of the end of november, seventy nine are what the article dubs "famous trademarks". This shows an stronger initiative by the government to respect international intellectual property laws, at least more than it traditionally has. Various other policies have been implemented by the Chinese governemtn to increase awareness and adress the intellectual property problem.

Cable Showing Their Cards

2005-12-16T04:45:00.000-08:00

For all our talk in CMS.610 about the power of Hollywood and the content owners and the power of corporate America and their ad dollars, my humble opinion is that no 800-pound gorilla is as big as your friendly neighborhood cable company. Take a look at the subscriber counts for the top cable companies - the top 6 are scary big. (BTW - You may want to bookmark that NTCA site, I find it to be a pretty good source of facts and figures on the TV industry.)

Comcast had $20B in revenue and $1b in profit (in a industry with huge CapEx expenditures don't let the profit margin fool you, their balance she shows they "keep" much of their money through fixed assets). From the MSO's point of view, they own the customers. So it follows that alternative technologies are trying to STEAL customers. With such deep pockets, they can buy some pretty nice security systems.

Which brings me to the reason for this post, a nice little article in the Journal yesterday describes what cable companies are doing to enable DIY TV. People are posting local football games or pictures of their holiday lights. This is powerful stuff because it is accessible to more people than have broadband and it is localized so more easily searchable. I do not think that Cable can compete with the Internet, but it may be able to forestall innovations by providing poor alternatives to the masses for a long time. 800-lb gorillas do not fade away. Haven't you seen Kong yet?

urban market in LA thrives from sales of knock off merchandise

2005-12-16T00:32:00.000-08:00

http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/la-wk-cover15dec15,0,7964577.story?coll=la-home-style

"Stores selling merchandise with popular TV and television characters are everywhere, but buyer beware. They may or may not be licensed.

"In any of the toy districts around the country, if one is walking down the street and sees stores or manufacturers who one would not normally associate with a Sesame Street Workshop … or any of the other companies that produce toys," the products might be unauthorized, says Steve Weinberg, an intellectual property attorney in Santa Monica who's litigated a number of cases involving toys."

this particular article is about the "cheap toy district" in LA, where the author notes that most of the business owners are form asia. Most of the stores get their products form asia, according to the article. Many of the toys aren't knock offs, though, branded with names many of the purchasers have never seen before, which might show early attempts of chinese companies to develop brand recognition in the US. many of the names seem impregnated with the japanese "odor" many mainstream companies try to avoid, according to some of the readings formt he class: Potex, Gealex, the ormer's Jam Drum drum machine, and the latters "magical tune" playing Electronic Beauty Set bear the mistranslations of makers not adept with english. most of the sellers are wholesale only.

Report on China WTO Compliance Shows Mixed Results

2005-12-16T00:19:00.000-08:00

http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2005&m=December&x=20051215091640ASesuarK0.7276575&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html

Report finds serious problems in "intellectual property rights enforcement".
Some sources attribute these problems to china's "incomplete transition" towards a market based economy.
"China has not yet fully embraced the key WTO principles of market access, non-discrimination and national treatment, nor has China fully institutionalized market mechanisms and made its trade regime predictable and transparent," according to the report. I wonder what corporate interest groups might be funding these initiatives, whether its money from groups lobbying for companies losing money to pirated dvds, or groups lobbying for companies with patent infringements, like pharmaceutical or technology companies.

HBO Provides Video for Cingular

2005-12-16T00:00:00.000-08:00

HBO will provide video clips of hit TV shows over Cingular's new high speed wireless network in about a year. In the meantime, HBO will provide standard mobile content such as ringtones and games. The venture will help Cingular compete with rival Sprint Nextel, who is setting up a venture with four top U.S. cable providers.
This may be a silly question and if it is forgive me, but with all these marvels in mobile content delivery, have cellular companies made sure that people will have enough battery life to enjoy all this new content. My phone battery only lasts about 3 hours, probably shorter talk time. Who knows how much that will be shortened if I plan to watch video clips on it? I hope these companies remember the basics...

Us pharmaceutical companies, backed by the bush administration lobby against patent law ammendment in Israel,

2005-12-16T00:12:00.000-08:00

"With the support of the Bush administration, US pharmaceutical companies allege that an amendment to Israel’s Patents Law to grant ethical drug companies marketing exclusivity only, instead of information exclusivity, seriously harmed their rights. The US companies also oppose an amendment to the Patents Law passed by the Knesset this week, under which Israel will not extend pharmaceutical patents beyond the period granted by other countries, even if the patent is registered late in Israel."

"The US companies allege that in such cases, they lose on the full five years of patent protection granted to them under the previous practice. Patent extension, they claim, derives from the recognition of the importance of drug development, including development of life-saving drugs. Development of this kind costs $900 million and can take 10-15 years."

Minister of Finance Ehud Olmert "in his meeting with China's trade minister, Olmert asked that China include Israeli companies in tender offers for infrastructure, water (desalination / reclamation / purification) and telecommunications. This, in light of Israel answering China's request to recognize it as a market economy, a measure required to aid China's integration into the global economy."

IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT AND BANDAI VISUAL USA SIGN NORTH AMERICA DISTRIBUTION AGREEMENT FOR JAPANESE ANIMATION PROGRAMMING

2005-12-15T23:59:00.000-08:00

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/pressrelease.php?id=1398

Image Entertainment announced a distribution agreement with Bandai to release a remastered standard DVD, as well as a boxed set, for the landmark anime films Patlabor 1 and Patlabor2 .
Patlabor is considered as one of the classics of Japanese anime, starting as a comic in the late 80's and resulted in the two movies being released, Patlabor1 in 1989 and Patlabor2 released in 1993, as well as subsequent releases. Patlabor 1 and Patlabor 2, works of renowned director Mamoru Oshii. The boxed sets will include exclusive illustrations.

First RPG for mobile phones

2005-12-15T23:52:00.000-08:00

http://newark.dbusinessnews.com/shownews.php?newsid=54799&type_news=latest

SkyZone Entertainment to Offer Ragnarok on Mobile Phones; MMORPG Game First in North America to Connect with Online Version

Skyzone Entertainment acquired publishing rights from Korean video game publishing company Gravity Co, Ltd., owners of Ragnaroc, a highly successful Massive On Line Role Playing Game to make the experience available through mobile phone technology for the US market. It is set to be released in early 2006, and both companies seem highly optimistic about its success. Two different versions of the game will be released, based on the wizard and the merchant characters.

SMIL 2.1 adopted as W3C Recommendation

2005-12-15T23:47:00.000-08:00

http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/Dec2005/2364.htm

Australia : The World Wide Web Consortium announces the publication of Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL 2.1) as a W3C Recommendation. Thanks to enhancements in SMIL 2.1, W3C is well on the way to making multimedia presentations on mobile devices a reality.

SMIL 2.1 Makes Authoring Easier, Enhances Transition and Layout Features

I wonder if this means that it will be easier for freelance developers, much like the modders of commercially available vido games of yesteryear, to develop modifications of the apps available. perhaps it will make it posible for freelance developers to write their own apps and sell them over the internet?

mastercard n micropayments

2005-12-15T23:28:00.000-08:00

MasterCard Supports Micro and Small Payments by Promoting Transaction Aggregation Model for Merchants

http://www.techweb.com/showPressRelease.jhtml?articleID=X404840

This article discusses the recent announcement of Mastercard of an initiative together with Peppercoin, a "payment technology company" capitalizing on he profitability of micro-payment structures, to develop an allegiance to stimulate the use of the formers card for small payments at the physical point of purchase as well as online.

basically they offer merchants the power to determine when to invoice their transactions, allowing merchants to process the payments cost effectively.

It seems to me they want to take advantage of Peppercoin's presence in the market and their network of users.

Ford Resumes Advertising in Gay Press

2005-12-15T16:47:00.000-08:00

Ford announced yesterday that they would resume ads in gay-themed publications after protest by gay rights activists. Advertising would mostly feature Jaguar and Land Rover. It is believed that Ford initially pulled the ads in response to threats by the Mississippi-based American Family Association, which owns about 200 radio stations, to boycott Ford. They also do not appreciate Ford extending benefits to partners of gay employees. It is unclear how the group will respond to Ford's resumption of advertising in gay publications.
I thought this incident was a particularly poignant illustration of John's point that a brand has to know who it is before it can begin to woo consumers. This is particularly true of a lifestyle brand like Jaguar, where you're selling more than a functional product, you're selling a way of life. Here, Ford was at a crossroads. They're in the midst of attempting to make their brand more relevant to contemporary consumers, of which gay consumers are a constituent. They also do not want to lose their base, which has historically been the American family. However, they eventually decided to court this new demographic. Hopefully, this is out of a clear vision that they have and not sacrificing their brand integrity by trying to please everyone.

Journalism is Declining?

2005-12-15T16:09:00.000-08:00

According to former Financial Times reporter, Tom Foremski, traditional journalism is on the decline, and online content providers are to blame. Google, Yahoo, Ebay, and many others, have figured out how to use servers to generate pages of content combined with highly targeted advertising. This has cut the cost of selling a product or service significantly. As a result, these large media companies are growing rich off the money that used to pay for online and traditional media professionals. Of course, he backs none of this up with actual figures showing drop in demand for media professionals, but he brings up an interesting topic of discussion.
I'm unclear of the mechanism that Foremski is referring to. I think he is saying because it relatively much cheaper for online media companies to provide content, there is no longer an incentive to pay media professionals to ensure the quality of the content. Thus, the shrinking of the media professional class will lead to a drop in quality of content.
This seems to have some validity as many online companies are plunging into the media space and many media companies are plunging into the online space, both with almost reckless abandon. However, I believe this experimental phase, characterized by wild scrambling to find the next solvent niche, will eventually end.
The real question that Foremski should be concerned with is what value do media professionals bring to online ventures. Media professionals lowered the cost of information to firms so that for every time a firm wanted to put a new product out, they didn't do have to do an expensive nationwide survey every time to find out if it was worth putting out. But with the Internet, a firm can garner almost instant feedback from the consumer without having to consult anyone. Did I mention that process was free?
Foremski is currently working on a new business model that includes media professionals. Good luck.