Archive for the ‘Future of entertainment’ Category
Accelerating Toward the Future of Content
Three years ago I was Fresh Off the Car, having just graduated from Syracuse, and completed the pilgrimage to Los Angeles. I was at a bar (Most likely El Guapo, since everyone starts there. It’s like the WME mailroom of LA bars.) and got into an… altercation with a lovely lady about the future of entertainment. All comments about my choice of bar conversations aside, I claimed we were five years from a complete entertainment transformation via what we refer to as the Internet.
Today, that leaves me two years to say, in my best Nikki Finke, TOLDJA!
Google Wave: The emergence of a new Ecosystem, the Platform to Save Us All
I’m one day into the private beta of Google Wave. There are about one million people signed up and using it, while the rest of the world still clamors to get in (A co-worker sold an invite for $20 yesterday, and sign up URLs are going for $75).
Why is everyone stumbling over themselves to get an invite?
Google has positioned Wave as the next evolution in e-mail. That’s a vast understatement. So vast, in fact, that it may do Wave a disservice in the next few months as we get up to speed. From what I’ve seen, Wave is not going to kill ‘normal’ e-mail. It is going to kill off a lot of other services and re-invent the way we interact on the web. But, my gmail account isn’t going anywhere.
The Facebook Biography or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love my Lack of Privacy
Back in the bad good-old-days; Before Facebook, AOL, Compuserve, BBS’s, DARPANET, and computers the size of that lady I see in Coffee Bean every morning, peoples lives were mostly private. You’d have to put in some time and true effort to let the world know what you thought about last nights episode of 3 Stooges or Lassie. Now we expect it via Facebook, Twitter, etc.
My brother went to Cornell which got Facebook shortly after Harvard. The second he told me about it, I was ready to sign up (Of course, the second he told what Middle School lunches were like I was ready for that too. Meatball subs?!). The day Facebook opened up to Syracuse I was there. Since then, I’ve had a handful of serious girlfriends, crazy nights, cross country adventures, scandalous apartments, and various forms of employment. All these events are marked by status updates, videos, pictures, and wall posts. Facebook (and to a lesser extent MySpace, YouTube and Twitter) contain my complete life history starting from my sophomore year in college. I’ve willingly given up so much more private information than the watcher of 3 Stooges would have ever imagined.
I wonder, what could Facebook tell me about myself?
Dancing and Piracy – When My Posts Combine …
According to NewTeeVee the the JK Wedding Entrance Dance (above) is Sony’s 8th most popular music video on YouTube, with nearly 26 million hits.
When it was first released, Sony had a major problem. The song, Forever by Chris Brown, was their ‘property’. Lord knows Jill and Kevin Peterson didn’t pay no stinkin ASCAP fees. And now, my lord, it’s on YOUTUBE?!
Is Culture Dead? Or does the Internet Just Love Random Dancing?
If you were to mention an object related to a ‘high brow’ subject to my dad (A famous painting, an unheard-of-to-my-generation author, a book from the 15th century, or rare musical recording) he’d trace back its roots (In real time, no Googling) and then either bring out that object – The honest to god original – Or some other rare object directly related to it.
Earlier this afternoon, my mom sent me an e-mail with a link to the Oprah Black Eyed Peas Concert:
EDIT: Taken off YouTube due to copyright violation I say with a hint of irony. Here it is via Oprah.com:
And it took mere seconds to trace its roots in ‘classic’ weblore.
Piracy: The Fight not worth Fighting
Before I get to my point, allow me to do some self congratulating give some background. I uploaded my first (horrible) video to the web in 2000. I used the Iomega Buzz to edit. Trust me, that wasn’t fun. My senior year of college, spring 2006, I pitched Google a webseries. A really cool webseries. It had functionality that YouTube can only now handle . They laughed at me.
I remember a fight with an ex-girlfriend after I had moved to LA, before I was gainfully employed, where she screamed “The only thing you have going for you is your stupid blog!” She was right, of course, but that didn’t prevent me from throwing a beer bottle onto the street (Sorry, Newport Beach) in a triumph of self righteousness. Of course, she was right. My blog was is stupid.
I was on Twitter in 2007 before it was dorky to be on Twitter because no one knew what the hell it was. Not that I was using it. But still, I had that account. And finally, for over two years, I’ve been working at one of the most well known New Media studios around. We’ve pumped out more high quality, web specific content, than probably any other independent shop. Hell, the major studio’s web divisions have all mostly closed up. For now.
What’s this all mean?
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