Last year saw the lowest number of movie tickets sold since 1995, coming in at 1.3 billion. That summer, only 543 million movie tickets sold, compared to the 629 million during the summer ten years ago.
Although 2012 has seen slightly better attendance and revenue than 2011, only an estimated 529 million tickets were sold this summer, reports TIME.
“That’s 100 million fewer tickets,” Exhibitor Relation’s Jeff Bock told USA Today in a related article. “That’s a really troubling number for the industry if you look at it that way, which reflects how the movie business is really doing.”
“While some experts say that ‘rising ticket prices mask attendance drops,’ there’s also an argument to be made that attendance drops have come directly as a result of rising ticket prices,” notes TIME.
“Nonetheless, despite declining attendance, and the obvious cause-effect in which raising prices will decrease attendance further, plenty of analysts have suggested that jacking up ticket prices is the solution for the struggling movie business.”
The article suggests that making better movies could help the issue. Social media has allowed people to quickly determine if a movie is worth seeing, and the high ticket prices make viewers much more selective. Good movies would validate spending the money on tickets, especially for expensive 3D.
Many small television stations are unprofitable or bankrupt, unable to compete with cable and the Internet. Some investors are hoping to flip these failing stations by taking them over and selling their airwaves at premium prices.
The Federal Communications Commission is planning an incentive auction to “reclaim spectrum for use by wireless phone companies and other bidders,” in order to meet expanding demand for wireless broadband services, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Private investors are planning small TV station purchases in major markets where the demand for spectrum is high. When the FCC auction comes — which may not even begin until 2022 — these investors hope to sell off airwaves at a significant profit.
“While the private-equity funds are buying stations for as little as several million dollars, observers say their value could be many times higher once the FCC auction gets under way,” the article states. “The speculative buying is providing an opportunity to small-station owners who want to cash out but don’t want to wait for the auction, which could be years away.”
For investors, buying the stations could be “a big payday,” says Marci Ryvicker, a cable and media analyst at Wells Fargo. “But there’s no guarantee.”
“A majority of Americans (54 percent) claim to never use cloud computing. However, 95 percent of this group actually does use the cloud,” reports Citrix per a national survey they commissioned.
The survey results show that many Americans acknowledge the significance of cloud computing, that they even use it for a variety of purposes, and yet they have almost no clue what it is.
“When asked what ‘the cloud’ is, a majority responded it’s either an actual cloud (specifically a ‘fluffy white thing’), the sky or something related to the weather (29 percent). Only 16 percent said they think of a computer network to store, access and share data from Internet-connected devices,” the press release states, adding that other responses varied from “toilet paper” to “outerspace” to “oh goody, a hacker’s dream.”
Despite this confusion, 22 percent of the 1,000 surveyed by Wakefield Research admitted to acting as if they knew what the cloud is or how it works. Also, 56 percent of respondents said they’ve had cloud conversations with others who didn’t really know what they were talking about.
Even though they may be unaware the services are cloud based, many people reported using online banking, shopping, social networking, online gaming and online storage or file-sharing.
“Even though many Americans don’t know exactly what the cloud does, they see its silver lining,” the release states. “Most Americans (68 percent) recognize the economic benefits after learning more about the cloud. The most recognized benefits are that the cloud helps consumers by lowering costs (35 percent), spurs small business growth (32 percent) and boosts customer engagement for businesses (35 percent). Millennials are most likely to believe that the cloud generates jobs (26 percent Millennials, 19 percent Boomers).”
Facebook doesn’t run a mobile operating system, thus it has no alliance to a specific platform. So when it was deciding how best to push apps to all devices, it opted for HTML5 over building numerous platform-specific apps.
“With that one decision — which makes sense when you think about the various pluses and minuses of the different options — it made its original Facebook app perhaps the most hated mobile app ever,” opines Eric Jackson of The Street.
Just as HTML “allowed one common language to proliferate” in the early days of the Web, “HTML5 and its advocates believed the same thing would happen in the mobile Internet,” the article explains.
“Mobile developers wouldn’t want to do all the work to build different versions of the same mobile apps. So they’d all opt for HTML5 as a programming language.”
But in Facebook’s case, the app turned out buggy and slow, often crashing. While HTML5 seemed like a good decision — and could be the best option in the future — it failed for Facebook in the present. And it took years to fix that mistake.
The post suggests the bad app not only frustrated users, but also caused the social giant to lose mobile momentum while its rival Twitter took off.
At the IFA show, Windows-enabled devices are changing the image of traditional PCs to take advantage of the new hybrid operating system.
“First are the straight tablets, which are primarily intended for use by themselves but often come with keyboard docks or cases. Second are the convertible PCs, which are basically Ultrabooks that fold down into thick tablets as necessary. Third are the standard PCs that have some sort of token touch support built-in — this takes the form of laptops or all-in-ones with capacitive touchscreens,” reports Ars Technica.
Sony showcased its Vaio 11 Duo convertible PC that can be used as a tablet with a stylus and digitizer for handwritten input. “Despite being a convertible, the computer sacrifices some of its utility as a laptop to be a better tablet — the keyboard looks cramped, and it forgoes a standard trackpad in favor of a pointing stick-style mouse,” explains the article. Sony also showed its 20-inch Tap 20 all-in-one with a kickstand, which can be used as a giant tablet.
Samsung promoted the Series 5 Ultrabooks featuring touchscreens, the Series 5 and 7 all-in-ones with “Samsung’s ill-advised ‘Start Menu’ simulacrum,” and the Series 5 Slate with optional keyboard dock.
Asus brings the Vivo Tab with an Intel version including a stylus, Wacom digitizer, and keyboard dock with extra USB ports, trackpad and added battery life. The company’s UX21A Touch ultrabook adds a touchscreen.
Dell’s new XPS Duo 12 convertible PC has gotten some attention online for its interesting design; it has “a 12-inch 1080p LCD that you flip over before closing the lid to put it into tablet mode — there are magnets that keep the screen in place when it isn’t being flipped,” the article states.
Toshiba presented its Satellite U925t convertible Ultrabook and has two existing computers upgrading to Windows 8 touch.
Three major book publishers are paying out $69 million to consumers after allegedly conspiring with Apple to fix the price of e-books.
Simon & Schuster, Hachette and HarperCollins have reached a settlement with 49 U.S. state governments (all except Minnesota) as well as 5 U.S. territories. If the court accepts the deal, consumers in those areas will be reimbursed $0.25 to $1.32 for every e-book they purchased between April 1, 2010 and May 21, 2012.
“The publishers will also put aside $7.6 million to compensate the states for investigation and attorneys’ costs and an additional $750,000 each to pay for the notification process,” which includes Google and Facebook ads, reports paidContent.
Publishers Penguin and Macmillan are still holding out along with Apple, but the states are pursuing another lawsuit against the companies. In the mean time, the other three publishers will compensate all e-book customers.
“Even though only three of the five accused publishers are part of the deal, publishers who bought an e-book from any one of the five will be compensated. The office of Connecticut’s attorney general said by email that this is because any conspirator is responsible for the actions of a co-conspirator,” the article concludes.
U.S. consumers spend around $360 a year on e-books and MP3 files, according to e-commerce company Bango.
Over the years, that investment can add up to thousands of valuable content files. As of today, those files will essentially be lost when a person passes away because intellectual property law doesn’t have a way to transfer licensing rights.
“Part of the problem is that with digital content, one doesn’t have the same rights as with print books and CDs,” explains SmartMoney. “Customers own a license to use the digital files — but they don’t actually own them. Apple and Amazon grant ‘nontransferable’ rights to use content.”
“The law is light years away from catching up with the types of assets we have in the 21st Century,” says Deirdre R. Wheatley-Liss, an estate planning attorney. Lecturer and researcher Dazza Greenwood agrees: “We need to reform and update intellectual property law.”
Now that much of consumers’ assets are digital, losing that content at their death means losing significant value. Relatives can possibly access the content using their loved one’s devices, but passwords can be restrictive and there isn’t always an easy way to divide up assets.
Attorney David Goldman hopes to set up a legal trust for people’s online accounts, which differs from mere online safe-deposit boxes.
“Having access to digital content and having the legal right to use it are two totally different things,” he says. “With traditional estate planning and wills, there’s no way to give the right to someone to access this kind of information after you’re gone.”
A new patent suggests Amazon’s future Kindles could feature both an e-ink and an LCD display — one on either side of the tablet, both touch-enabled.
“The e-commerce giant has been awarded a patent where e-ink and LCD would work together — one display would be static for reading, while the LCD would be optimized for video watching,” reports Mashable. “The patent filing states that it would make use of the device’s front and rear-facing cameras to determine which side to display content.”
“A device might alternatively utilize at least one camera to determine which side of the device is facing the user, and might activate the display on that side of the device to convey content,” notes the patent. “A device might display notifications on an edge of the device, such that a current orientation of the device might be less important.”
According to the filing, the dual-screen concept may actually lengthen battery life by deferring to e-ink when slow- to non-moving content is displayed.
Amazon is planning a press event in Los Angeles for September 6, and is expected to launch its next-gen Kindle e-reader and Kindle Fire.
An April ruling set the precedent that all tweets belong to Twitter and users have no privacy rights in their Twitter accounts. This week, Twitter filed an appeal. GigaOM reports the main arguments of the appeal:
“Twitter users have a property right in the content they post (citing a case in which a photographer posted a Haiti earthquake photo to Twitter).”
“Twitter users should have the same right to challenge subpoenas as Gmail users.”
“Twitter users have a Fourth Amendment privacy right in their accounts.”
“The judge made an error by ruling that all of Harris’ tweets, including the deleted ones, were public.”
The case referenced in the fourth argument above centers on Occupy Wall Street protestor Malcolm Harris who was arrested after his Twitter information was subpoenaed. Judge Matthew Sciarrino Jr. rejected efforts to quash the subpoena. He likened Twitter to shouting on the street, saying “the street is an online, information superhighway, and the witnesses can be the third party providers like Twitter, Facebook, Instragram, Pinterest.”
The ACLU has vowed support for Twitter’s appeal: “Under the First and Fourth Amendments, we have the right to speak freely on the Internet, safe in the knowledge that the government can’t get information about our speech without a warrant and without satisfying First Amendment scrutiny.”
Powered by IBM’s technology and analytics, the U.S. Open has new enhanced apps that go beyond merely tracking who beat whom.
The mobile apps for iPhones, iPads and Android devices offer live streams, player analysis along with statistics, highlights and Twitter conversations.
For the tennis fans at the New York City stadium, IBM has an interactive touchscreen wall that allows users to see what’s happening around the complex. There’s also a fan center for playing tennis-related video games.
In what Mashable calls “perhaps the most innovative” feature on the apps, predictive technology suggests which tennis star is likely to win. IBM’s on-site tech hub manages real-time match data and previous statistics, using analytic algorithms to formulate predictions.
“The data is invaluable to coaches, athletes and others working the grounds, including referees who hold a small device in their hands that analyzes each serve volley and point,” notes Mashable. “The same technology that delivers this insight is also being used to monitor babies in prenatal wards, help police departments prevent crime and enable financial services firms to improve customer service.”
In just two years, Flipboard has captured 20 million users who now flip a total of three billion pages a month using its Web-based retro magazine aesthetic.
The company is now expanding into video, adding “TV” channels to its Content Guide sidebar.
“The app start-up has made waves by aggregating text Web articles as though they were magazine pages,” reports paidContent. “Now it wants to do the same for video.”
“In one way, this is nothing new — articles read through Flipboard can already contain videos,” explains the article. “What is notable is that Flipboard is making a specific play for audiovisual content inside its magazine-like applications.”
“With its ‘TV’ channels, Flipboard may get to do for video publishers like Chow.com, TED Talks and Pitchfork TV what it is doing for Web text publishers.”
However, the app may have problems with its new channels. As the article points out, Flipboard’s in-app videos are slightly slower and the orientation rotation takes more time.
Even so, the move is a good indication that the service is becoming more diverse as it matures, concludes paidContent.
Twitter has created an “interest graph” that determines users’ interests from their followers, their Web browsing, and what they click on. Now, the microblogging platform is giving this data to advertisers in order to create more targeted ads.
“We’ve always taken a thoughtful approach to monetization, and early results show interest targeting creates a better experience for marketers and users,” writes Twitter’s Kevin Weil.
Twitter hopes the benefits from relevant ads will outweigh concerns about tracking. The company is aiming to please advertisers who have said Twitter “doesn’t offer enough options for isolating the right audience,” reports The Verge.
“Advertisers can now target users on Twitter by their topical interests, a total of 350 categories ranging from ‘Bollywood’ to ‘personal finance’ to ‘dogs,'” the article explains. “That’s not all: advertisers can also select particularly influential users and cater campaigns to their interests, and by extrapolation, target other users who share those interests.”
The interest graph data is available for Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts, which Twitter awards based on advertisers’ price bid and engagement rate.
According to inside sources, Apple and Google have been in talks concerning “a range of intellectual property matters, including the ongoing mobile patent disputes between the companies,” reports Reuters.
From lower-level officials to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Larry Page, the discussions between the two companies have been kept under wraps.
Sources tell Reuters that Cook and Page are expected to talk again in the coming weeks, following Apple’s noteworthy legal victory over Samsung, which uses Google’s Android OS.
“One possible scenario under consideration could be a truce involving disputes over basic features and functions in Google’s Android mobile software, one source said. But it’s unclear whether Page and Cook are discussing a broad settlement of the various disputes between the two companies — most of which involve the burgeoning mobile computing area — or are focused on a more limited set of issues,” notes the article.
As mobile wars rage on, Apple has made moves to distance itself from Google; it has replaced Google’s mobile mapping software with its own and has axed Google’s preloaded YouTube app on the lastest iOS update.
The talks could suggest that Cook is more conciliatory than his predecessor Steve Jobs who called Android a “stolen product” and threatened “thermonuclear war” against the platform.
Politicians are spending about $10,000 to $100,000 or more for 140-character Twitter ads, bringing politics closer to consumers — and faster, too.
“Twitter has become a central tool for most political campaigns, letting campaigns reach voters nearly instantly, whether for fund raising or political messages, as well as simply to gather more Twitter followers to build audience for future tweets,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Now, paid ads — which make a campaign’s message more prominent, and less likely to get lost in users’ ever-churning news feeds — are moving into the spotlight ahead of the parties conventions and the November election.”
Twitter enables a rapid response from campaigns, allowing advertisers to take advantage of developing changes. For example, Democratic senator Claire McCaskill quickly launched a tweet saying, “Don’t let Todd Akin get elected. He thinks ‘women can’t get pregnant from #legitimaterape.’ Donate to @clairemc now” — after her rival made his now famous gaffe.
But, as the article points out, Twitter’s offerings go beyond just pinning paid tweets to the tops of news feeds or search results. “Aside from buying ‘promoted tweets’ in users’ Twitter news feeds or on certain searches, advertisers can also buy spots known as ‘promoted accounts’ and ‘promoted trends’ — accounts and trends that are listed alongside other suggestions for whom to follow and hot hashtags,” notes WSJ.
As the election draws nearer, expect to see more political Twitter ads, the article suggests. Fortunately for Twitter, this election could signal a notable switch in political advertising if the speedy campaigns prove effective.
Television networks are experiencing a change of heart, recognizing the additive potential of digital platforms and no longer viewing them purely as a threat to ratings, reports Variety, noting that broadcasters are now leveraging new platforms to boost on-air ratings.
Where before top networks would never offer new TV pilots on VOD or online streaming prior to the broadcast debut, Fox, NBC and others are now releasing full-length shows before their TV premiere.
“At first blush, the gambit holds out the possibility of cannibalizing audience by giving the viewers most likely to watch a show’s premiere a reason to opt out of the TV exhibition window, where most money is made through ratings guarantees to advertisers,” explains Variety. “But the flipside notion taking on increasing currency is that advance screenings could be the best way to generate buzz, converting early birds into grassroots marketing machines.”
The article also notes the potential to create damaging negative buzz, making the move a somewhat risky proposition.
“On demand is now becoming a meaningful platform for networks to find audiences and sampling for their shows,” says Comcast executive Matt Strauss. “That’s a pretty fundamental shift in how programmers have historically looked at on demand.”
Comcast has released new data that suggests a connection between early exposure on video-on-demand to increases in ratings on linear channels.
Last year, Fox debuted “New Girl” online two weeks before the on-air premiere and saw 2 million views before the show hit TV. There was some concern that all this traffic would reduce ratings, but “New Girl” still had a strong premiere. The network is slightly tweaking its online rollout; online or VOD offerings are now available almost a month before the on-air premiere but are taken down some time before the debut.
