Verizon FiOS views cord-cutting as a potential game-changer that could launch a new revenue stream through a la carte content.
Cord-cutting “is not stopping. It’s growing. The question is: Is it growing enough for us?” asks Maitreyi Krishnaswamy, Verizon’s director of interactive video services, responsible for the company’s FiOS TV.
Verizon is planning a Netflix competitor with Redbox to launch later this year. GigaOM notes that “cord cutting is fundamentally changing the parameters of Verizon’s TV business.”
“Is the migration to a-la-carte enough that we can go that route?” says Krishnaswamy. “It impacts how we negotiate TV contracts with studios. It’s not something we can do overnight, but definitely something we’ve been looking at.”
“Krishnaswamy didn’t spell out all the details, but here is what I read between the lines of this statement: Cord cutting isn’t just about some people not paying for TV anymore, but also about enabling new and innovative business models, including unbundled subscriptions to individual channels,” suggests Janko Roettgers, writing for GigaOM. “And Verizon is apparently ready to take the plunge as soon as the wave is big enough.”
According to new data from Ericsson, 62 percent of people each week participate in social media activities during their TV viewing time, an increase of 18 percent over last year.
Four in 10 of those consumers are using social media to discuss the TV content they are watching.
Additionally, 67 percent of consumers are using tablets, smartphones or laptops for “their everyday TV viewing, both for video consumption and to enable a social media experience while watching TV,” according to Ericsson.
“But despite the growing popularity of on-demand viewing across many platforms, watching broadcast TV programming live is still the dominant viewing preference, the study found. Pair that insight with the social TV stat and you can see why a social TV strategy is so vital,” reports MediaPost. “Yes — consumers are watching on other devices, but by and large they’re watching on TV and they’re often also talking about the show thanks to social networks on their phones or mobile devices.”
“This research underscores how deeply habits are changing, and how essential it is for programmers and marketers to capture the TV viewer not only on the ‘first screen’ but also on the screen they use for interaction — the mobile one in most cases,” explains MediaPost.
Fox Filmed Entertainment is planning a new digital window for its films by offering HD versions at newly lowered prices about three weeks prior to disc and VOD availability.
The new model will begin this month with director Ridley Scott’s sci-fi thriller “Prometheus,” which will be made available via digital purchase on September 18. The film is slated for DVD, Blu-ray and VOD release on October 11.
Fox will join the UltraViolet digital locker system used by Warner Brothers, Universal Pictures and others.
“The new system is an aggressive bid to revive consumers’ interest in the purchase of movies, by giving them an earlier shot at films for about $15 each, down from a purchase price that is currently about $20,” reports The New York Times.
“That will nibble into what has been a waiting period of roughly four months in which pictures play exclusively in theaters before their release in home entertainment formats,” notes the article.
Home video sales have dropped from a $21.8 billion high in 2004 to $18.4 billion in 2011.
“According to figures from the Digital Entertainment Group, an industry consortium, digital sales of films and television shows — as opposed to revenue from rentals or on-demand viewings — rose almost 22 percent in the first six months of this year, to $329.4 million, from $270.3 million in the first half of 2011,” according to the article.
We’d like to remind our readers that Silicon Beach @ USC is scheduled for this week. USC’s Marshall School of Business and the School of Cinematic Arts will host the event on the USC campus September 12-13.
For those attending the conference program on Thursday, September 13, please note the start time has been changed to 9:00 AM (with registration and coffee at 8:00 AM).
Presenters and panelists for the September 13 conference will include Andrew Stalbow of Rovio, Paul Bricault of Amplify.LA, Chris DeWolfe of Social Games Network, Mitch Singer of Sony Pictures Entertainment, David Wertheimer of Fox and others.
The event will also feature the first-ever Silicon Beach Award competition (September 12, invitation-only) for new ventures pursuing opportunities in innovative media platforms and digital content and services, in which teams will compete for three awards totaling $50,000 in prize money.
Silicon Beach @ USC — led by the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, the Institute for Communication Technology Management, and the Entertainment Technology Center — will focus on innovation and entrepreneurship in digital media and technology.
Keynotes and panels will focus on the intersection of technology and digital content, the future of media, and the monetization of new applications, devices and services.
For more information or to register for the September 13 conference, visit the Silicon Beach @ USC event website.
Each month, SMPTE presents a one-hour, online, interactive webcast that addresses a hot-topic technology.
“Each educational webcast is designed to address specific technology and technical challenge facing the motion imaging industry,” explains SMPTE. “These convenient, non-commercial webcasts provide an excellent opportunity to learn more about highly relevant technology related topics.”
ETC members may be interested in the September 13 session with Jim Whittlesey of Deluxe: “High Frame Rates — A Technical Discussion on the Impact it Will Have on Motion Imaging Workflows.”
The session will address how HFR technology affects production, storage, delivery, distribution and the theatrical experience.
You can register via SMPTE. The sessions are offered for free to members and for $49 to non-members.
Cambodian police have arrested 27-year-old Gottfrid Svartholm Warg in Phnom Penh, months after his one-year prison sentence was due to begin in Sweden.
Svartholm, one of the individuals behind file-sharing website The Pirate Bay, was arrested in connection with the alleged illegal use of information technology. The Pirate Bay was launched in 2003 by Svartholm and Fredrik Neij.
“In 2009, Messrs. Svartholm and Neji were tried in Stockholm with Peter Sunde and businessman Carl Lundstrom for facilitating the breach of copyright law,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “The four men were found guilty, and each was sentenced to one year in prison. They appealed, and all except Mr. Svartholm received reduced prison terms.”
“Svartholm left Sweden before the appeal verdict, and an international warrant for his arrest was issued when he failed to return to Stockholm to serve his sentence,” notes the article.
WSJ suggests the case could potentially reignite “the debate over how the Internet should be used to share copyrighted material.”
The U.S. Patent Office has published a new Apple patent that suggests the company is developing an advanced graphics application that could take on Adobe’s popular Photoshop and Illustrator programs.
“The new app will also be aimed at Macs and the iPad,” reports Patently Apple. “The system is being designed to work with both the mouse and touchscreen gestures.”
The detailed report includes sections describing an overview of the virtual drawing space application, the proposed graphical display system, the display system related to object layer management and more.
According to the report, the “invention relates to systems, methods, and computer-readable media for changing graphical object input tools.”
“Apple is patenting a way in which someone using an illustrator of digital image editing program can adjust the settings of the current tool they are using — such as a brush’s size or opacity — by using gestures at or near that tool, which would then visually change the tool to represent the changes,” notes Cult of Mac. “You would also be able to change tools with gestures. And these gestures would work using a mouse, a trackpad or a touchscreen.”
At a Santa Monica event Thursday, Amazon revealed a new Kindle Fire HD, an updated version of the original Kindle Fire and a self-lighting Kindle e-reader, much like the rival Nook e-reader from Barnes & Noble.
The new 7-inch Kindle Fire HD with Wi-Fi, stereo speakers, dual antennas and a front facing camera will sell for $199. The updated version of the original Fire will sell for $159 — down from $199 — and is set to ship on September 14.
The 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD will be available November 20 starting at $299, while the 4G version starts at $499. Specs on all models can be found in the Amazon press release.
“We’re taking on the most popular price point for a tablet, $499, but doubling the storage and incredibly, adding ultra-fast 4G LTE wireless,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “Kindle Fire HD is not only the most-advanced hardware, it’s also a service. When combined with our enormous content ecosystem, unmatched cross-platform interoperability and standard-setting customer service, we hope people will agree that Kindle Fire HD is the best high-end tablet anywhere, at any price.”
“The company showed off some new software, such as one measuring tablet usage for children and a voice-recognition technology for book reading,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “It will also release eight new serialized novels for $1.99 each under a new unit called Kindle Serials.”
“Like last year’s cheapest Kindle e-reader, all three new models — that’s the Fire, the HD 7, and the HD 8.9 — will display Amazon’s ‘Special Offers’ promotions and advertisements on their lock screens,” notes The Verge. “Unlike the low-end Kindle, however, Amazon isn’t offering the devices in more expensive, ad-free models, nor is it making mention of any way to opt out for a fee.”
“Google has extended its Patent Search facility to include European patents and has added a Prior Art facility,” reports I Programmer. “With the patent war over Android going on, one has to wonder whether this was to meet an in-house need.”
Google’s Patent Search has been available for U.S. patents since 2006. Its traffic has recently doubled.
“Jon Orwant, the leader of Google’s Patent Search team, says, ‘People are thinking about patents a whole lot more’ and thinks this trend is ‘correlated’ to interest in the various high-stakes mobile patent lawsuits,” notes the post.
Google’s partnership with the European Patent Office “enables Google to improve its machine learning technology for technical language and in return Google provides its improved translation service free of charge to the EPO.”
The Prior Art facility will be of value to inventors and the legal profession. “In order to be granted a patent the inventor has to establish that it is a novel idea — and in the current litigious environment companies and their lawyers might want to show that patents should not have been granted,” suggests the post.
Sources suggest Barnes & Noble will unveil a new Nook tablet at a press conference later this month. The device could be running on Windows 8.
“The Nook Color was Barnes & Noble’s answer to the 7-inch tablet, but the device never quite left its roots as an e-reader,” reports Digital Trends. “According to our source, who had discussed the to-be-announced Nook with a Microsoft employee close to the matter, that may change.”
“The existing Nook tablet’s selling point has been the ease of its use as an e-reader, but the new Nook may have a renewed focus on tablet features,” notes the post. “If that’s the case, Barnes & Noble clearly has its sights set on competing more aggressively with the Amazon Fire, Google’s Galaxy Nexus 7 and the to-be-released iPad mini.”
If the history of earlier Barnes & Noble tablet releases is any indication, we should expect to see the new Nook on shelves somewhere in the two months prior to the holiday season.
“With Microsoft’s $605 million investment in Barnes & Noble in exchange for a 17.6 percent stake in a subsidiary, the question that looms is whether the new tablet would scrap the Android OS and run Windows 8,” concludes Digital Trends. “From what we’ve heard, we’re more inclined to believe that the unannounced Nook will run on Windows 8, as many have already speculated.”
At a press event in New York yesterday, Nokia unveiled its new Windows Phone 8 device, the Lumia 920.
“With a dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 CPU (the same one that drives the current U.S. supremos, the HTC One X and Galaxy S III), a ‘better than HD’ 1,280 x 768 LCD display, PureView imaging (albeit with only eight megapixels), NFC capabilities, 2,000mAh battery with wireless charging and a next-gen Redmond-baked OS, this handset’s a big-break proposition for the flailing Finnish company; an attempt to up the ante and compete on even ground,” reports Engadget.
Pricing and release details are expected by Q4. The post includes a full hands-on review, slideshow of images and 5-minute video report.
In a related story from CNET, Nokia is bringing all kinds of music — from the New York Philharmonic to Lady Gaga — to U.S. Lumia owners for free through its new Nokia Music app.
Music experts created over 150 different playlists for the app. “Users can also scour a collection of millions of songs to generate their own playlists based on their favorite music and artists. And though the service is designed for streaming, Lumia owners can listen to music offline via their special playlists,” CNET reports.
Lumia users can use the free app to download and play tracks from Nokia’s MP3 store, which offers over 15 million songs. The app’s Gig Finder notes the user’s location to find local concerts and shows; users can even buy tickets and get directions to events.
Amazon has announced a multiyear licensing deal with Epix that will provide popular films from Paramount and Lionsgate through Amazon’s streaming service.
“Epix is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment, Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., so a deal with Epix amounts to a basket of entertainment from all the studios,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
The move is expected to help Amazon compete with the likes of Netflix, which recently ended its exclusive deal with Epix.
“We are investing hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the Prime Instant Video library for our customers. We have now more than doubled this selection of movies and TV episodes to over 25,000 titles in just under a year,” said Bill Carr, VP of video and music at Amazon.
“That is still a far cry from the roughly 50,000 shows and movies Netflix is estimated to have, and the more than 58,400 videos Hulu offers its subscribers,” notes the article.
Tribeca Film released a new documentary this weekend in New York and Seattle. Directed by Chris Kenneally and narrated by Keanu Reeves, “Side by Side” examines the impact of digital technology on today’s moviemaking.
“For a film geek this movie is absolute heaven, a dream symposium in which directors, cinematographers, editors and a few actors gather to opine on the details of their craft,” writes A. O. Scott in his New York Times review. “It is worth a year of film school and at least 1,000 hours of DVD bonus commentary.”
Scott suggests the film is not merely “pro-digital propaganda,” but features a balance of tech enthusiasts and skeptics, while “the discourse tilts toward triumphalism.”
“Not only do you get to sit at the feet of Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh, Christopher Nolan and other heroes of modern cinema,” he writes. “You also get to check out the latest high-definition cameras from Panavision, Arriflex, Canon and Red.”
Scott notes the importance of discovery, experimentation and invention as part of filmmaking’s history and how crucial it has been for filmmakers to adapt to big changes over time including “the arrival of sound, of color, of wide-screen, of television.”
The film addresses both sides of arguments involving digital utopianism, instantly available dailies, and advances in editing and color timing.
Scott’s only criticism: “Kenneally might have paid more attention to the world beyond Hollywood, and also to the impact of digital technology on lower-budget, independent filmmaking and on restoration, but within the parameters it defines, this film does an excellent job of presenting complex material in an enlightening and exciting manner.”
“What it cannot do is provide the last word on the digital revolution in movies, since the revolution is in its early stages,” concludes Scott. “For now the mix of agnosticism and optimism — of respect for the old and enthusiasm for the new — seems reasonable. But we will have to wait for the sequel to know for sure.”
“Google has decided to pull the plug on Google TV Ads, its five-year attempt to convert the cable and broadcast TV industry into selling its available ad inventory on an online ad exchange,” reports Business Insider.
The announcement arrives amidst rumors that Google is considering a sale of its Motorola Mobility set-top box unit.
Google TV is not affected, and the company continues its Google Fiber efforts, which delivers high-speed Internet access (and possibly pay TV) to early users in Kansas City.
“We’ve made the hard decision to close our TV Ads product over the next few months and move the team to other areas at Google,” explains Shishir Mehrotra, VP of product, YouTube/video. “We’ll be doubling down on video solutions for our clients (like YouTube, AdWords for Video, and ad serving tools for Web video publishers). We also see opportunities to help users access Web content on their TV screens, through products like Google TV.”
“The death of Google TV Ads is a huge victory for the broadcast and cable networks, who are fighting an epic war against the Web, which threatens to turn traditional TV viewing into the newspaper business of the 21st Century,” suggests the article.
“Google TV Ads was the third major attempt to start an online electronic exchange for TV ads, all of which have been rendered extinct by cable and network TV’s refusal to allow any programming inventory to be sold on them.”
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is among the ten celebrities who will be competing in Canon’s Project Imaginat10n initiative — a fresh new take on the short film competition.
The directors (including Jamie Foxx, James Murphy and Eva Longoria) will gain inspiration from fan submitted photos. Photo categories include “setting, time, character, mood, backstory, relationship, goal, obstacle, the unknown and an unannounced 10th theme,” reports Wired.
The celebrities will work with director Ron Howard and will be partnered with professional production teams.
“The concept behind Project Imaginat10n showcases the power still images can have on narrative storytelling, but more importantly, it demonstrates there are no limits with creativity, and sources of inspiration can come from anyone or anything,” Howard explained in a statement. “I’m thrilled to work with this talented group of new directors… to help them on this creative journey.”
Stone worked as an artist before founding Twitter, and hopes his combination of talents will help him succeed in the competition.
“When you’re building software that millions of people use at the same time, you really have to be prepared in advance,” he explains. “I still think of myself as an artist and maybe the way that I express myself now is by creating platforms for millions of others to express themselves… This project allows me to get right in to the more traditional definition of the word.”
