Archive for the ‘entertainment’ Category
Bill Murray’s February Calendar
Thursday, January 28th, 2010Edging closer towards the Holodeck
Friday, January 22nd, 2010Considering the profound global success of James Cameron’s Avatar, as well as the hype surrounding practical 3-D television at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the growing frenzy surrounding the current 3-D craze has got me thinking about the future of cinema and immersive entertainment yet again. Now, we’re no where near seeing holographic, pliant, lifelike simulations like the one illustrated in the clip above – in fact, in our lifetimes we’re more likely to see something like a real starship Enterprise constructed before we ever see its famous Holodeck – but, for all the commotion surrounding 3D, well, it has got me looking at some new entertainment ventures that are edging us closer to true, fully immersive digital entertainment. (more…)
Post-class Reflection: Economics 101, courtesy of Monday Night Football, Chris Anderson, and Mickey Mouse
Friday, October 30th, 2009
I’ll explain what this image is about momentarily, but first, let me begin with a prologue. Tuesday night in my Net Economics course at the UW MCDM a lively debate, to say the least, was had over Chris Anderson’s new book “Free”; whether free as a concept was good or bad. I took the free side, but it made me feel a little lonely. I almost felt like I was the only student in the room who believed that it’s a good thing that we’re moving towards a digital economy based on giving bits away, harnessing business models that find alternative sources of revenue. For instance, a fellow student mentioned that Microsoft has a 90% market share of netbook operating systems, a testament to the strength of their software, no doubt. However, I posited that if MSFT went the Anderson route and gave their OS away for free they could have a 100% market share. I’m not going to say what the reaction to that was, but considering our proximity to Redmond and the makeup of the class, which includes Microsoft employees, you can take a wild guess…
Anderson’s “Free” starts out by giving us a quick economics briefing, using that as backdrop to defend the notion of ‘free’. He explains that, for instance, traditional, or old media has used a third-party advertising model to earn revenue while still providing a “free” product. I may not pay for 30 Rock, but when I buy products advertised during commercial breaks on TV or in interstitials on Hulu, I am still giving my money to NBC. It’s pretty basic and has worked for Google, a benevolent empire that has largely amassed their wealth through selling advertising and diversifying revenue streams. Of course, the model isn’t absolutely identical – the web magnifies things by presenting opportunities to apply wisdom gleaned from specific metrics and target users with relevant advertising, as well as ways of satisfying niches with long tail services – but the principle is the same: subsidize one product (free content) with money made from another (paid ad space). Multiply and diversify.
With the notion of one product funding the other in mind, I further illustrate the point by explaining how I helped inadvertently save ABC, Monday Night Football, and the Disney company in 2004. Maybe. Or not. But keep reading! I think you’ll enjoy the reasoning anyways!
I’m letting the Mouse out of the bag…
Monday, October 26th, 2009You can’t say “let the cat out of the bag” when you’re dealing with a Mouse. BTW, I am SO INSANELY EXCITED ABOUT THIS. I’ve been waiting 5 years to see this game come to light and to happily say that I had a small part of it, and now that it’s all over the web and Game Informer is doing an amazing job covering what the developers are doing, I think it’s fair to share the following tidbit about a little game they call Epic Mickey…
Where da money at?
Friday, August 14th, 2009For my final blog post in Drew Keller’s Web Storytelling course this summer in the MCDM, I am going to diverge just a little from the exact question Drew posed for us with this entry, which was: Bill Wasik at Big Think believes shorter content on-line will always be free; do I agree or disagree? Wasik, in this video, takes new media to task, discussing things like the beauty of what the longtail provides us, the detriments of endless online distractions, and what people are willing to pay for on the web. I’m less concerned about whether people will pay for content based on duration or production value, or what they will or will not pay for in terms of any type of content at all. I’m satisfied with the current status quo – I love that the web evens the playing field for cultural commodities, that for a few bucks Spider-Man 3 on Netflix can be streamed one minute, or without any money changing hands a clip of a teenager brutally injuring himself on a trampoline at YouTube can be shared the next, and, also for free, I can finish with a live satellite feed from CNN of a breaking news event in India while engaging fellow Facebook users about what’s happening, all of it right here online and on my lappy at the coffee shop. Obviously people are willing to pay for access to the infrastructure that provides all of this content – the DSL, the cable Internet, the FiOS and so forth. And they’ll pay for that Netflix download and other certain things, too. But it seems that web culture was FOREVER decided that digital = free, so content providers have to generally rely on meager revenue streams from embedded adverts and banner ads and interstitials and the like so I can still watch the latest episode of “Desperate Housewives” any time of day. But I guess that’s just not enough for content producers and providers. They keep asking – everyone keeps asking:
Where da money at? (more…)
The perfect mockery of the mommyblog and cutesy LDS girl culture all wrapped into one
Monday, February 16th, 2009Yesterday I was introduced to Seriously, So Blessed!, the ultimate mockery of two genres of societal practice all wrapped in to one.
Seriously, So Blessed!'s February Banner
Trust me, just take a peek if you can stand it and then come back… this site has got insulting two cultures down to a science! First, the phenomenon of the mommyblog, and second, an Inter-mountain West culture comprised primarily of LDS women that appears to gravitate around cultural artifacts like the scrapbook, knitting, and crocheting.
Inspiration: storytelling and the importance of old media
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009Though we exist in a time of great media upheaval, where the Internet has made available so much story for so little effort, millions are still drawn to long-form traditional narratives. We still go to the cinema, the bookstore, the concert, the play, the big game, the event. Though so much power can be packed into a media snack – a tweet, a blog post, a text message, a sentence, a word, or even an acronym (LMAO anyone?) – we still sit down for super-sized media meals. Something must be inspiring us to pull up that chair and sup from the old media table. Inspiration seems to be the answer. What is the importance of inspiration to storytelling? In our digital world – full of bombardment from massive narrative abstraction and fragmentation, where so much story content is being communicated in so many bits and bytes and packets like bullets from a fiber-optic Gatling gun – we still find time to stick the old media morphine drip in. This happens when we do something so archaic as watch an hour-long drama on network television, spend nine innings at the baseball stadium, or, gasp, read an entire Harry Potter book cover-to-cover. (more…)
A pitch idea for promoting Jill Keto’s “Don’t Get Caught with Your Skirt Down: The Practical Girl’s Recession Guide”
Friday, January 30th, 2009The following was prepared for my Digital Storytelling class at the UW MCDM. It is in no way, shape, or form endorsed by Jill Keto or Atria Publishing.
PROPOSAL | Jill Keto Presents the Girls’ Guide to Surviving the Inevitable: Economic Depression, Ninja Invasion, and Zombie Apocalypse
LOGLINE | Money guru Jill Keto uses her economic wisdom, financial insight, and infectious charm to teach working girls how to prepare for and survive the oncoming Second Great Depression, including showing us what a young woman should do when stealthy armies of ninja warriors begin tormenting your home looking for valuable gold and jewels, and what happens when your typical go-girl on a budget can’t find the right pair of shoes or the correct ammunition when the prophesied Zombie Apocalypse finally hits! (web video series, color, 2009)
Image by KCIvey at flickr
OVERVIEW | Let’s face it, zombies are hot these days, and ninjas are fast returning to popularity. Also, everyone’s talking about the economy, which continues to spiral downward out of control. But how could all these things possibly be brought together? Jill Keto, in her impressive debut book Don’t Get Caught with Your Skirt Down: A Practical Girl’s Recession Guide, surprised many with her keen foreknowledge and womanly instinct, predicting not only the current recession, but showing pragmatic women everywhere how to scale back yet keep chic. How can she follow this up while expanding her demographic to include the plugged-in hipster elite? Read on… (more…)
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