Amazon Studios has announced the first four series projects selected for its development slate — three comedies and one children’s show.
“They become the first submitted scripts to be selected for the Amazon Studios Series Development Slate, extending their option on the projects and awarding their creators $10,000 in options as a result of their intention to turn them into a TV series that will be distributed through the company’s digital video streaming service, Amazon Instant Video,” reports The Next Web.
The four projects include the animated comedies “The 100 Deaths of Mort Grimley” and “Magic Monkey Billionaire,” the mockumentary “Doomsday” and a children’s project called “Buck Plaidsheep.”
Clive Barker is reportedly working on a rewrite of “Zombies vs. Gladiators,” one of 16 film projects currently being developed for Amazon Studios since the division’s launch nearly two years ago. Some 9,000 movie scripts and 1,000 series pilots have been submitted since the launch.
“In practice, it means that Amazon Studios is becoming an additional, crowdsourced content source for Amazon, while the company is increasingly venturing into original programming,” adds The Next Web.
If the programs make it to production, they will be available for streaming on Amazon Instant Video or possibly licensed to Warner Bros. and other TV companies.
Measurement firm comScore recently released its “State of the U.S. Internet” report that measures trends in social networking, mobile, online advertising and e-commerce.
According to the study, “unique visits to social networking sites have increased by 6 percent year-over-year,” reports TechCrunch. “The company also re-confirmed that Pinterest remains the fastest-growing social network as of Q1 2012, and its users rival only that of LinkedIn in terms of buying power.”
Distribution of the worldwide Internet audience — 41 percent Asia Pacific, 26.6 percent Europe, 14.6 percent North America, 8.9 percent Latin America and 8.8 percent Middle East-Africa. (The report notes that in 1996, two-thirds of the Internet population was in the U.S.)
Social networking growth — Pinterest +4377 percent, Tumblr +168 percent, LinkedIn +67 percent, Twitter +58 percent and Facebook +4 percent.
In March of this year, 62.9 percent of phone purchases were smartphones. The number of mobile users is projected to pass the number of desktop users by 2014.
Amazon, Apple, Walmart, Target and Netflix were among the top retail sites in Q1 2012, with Amazon showing an impressive 30 percent growth in its number of unique visitors year-over-year.
“Online shopping has been impacting brick-and-mortar sales, too, thanks to what comScore dubs ‘showrooming,’ which you know as the process of using offline retail stores to look at products up close, then buying online,” explains the post. “Thirty five percent of people told comScore they had ‘showroomed,’ but chose to buy online for better prices.”
While comScore predicts U.S. online ad spending will grow 18 percent in 2012, monetization remains a challenge.
Former Microsoft executive Fritz Lanman has launched Livestar, a an iOS app intended to supply “trusted” recommendations for restaurants, movies and music.
While the app currently only offers three categories of recommendations, Lanman hopes to expand to “wine, clothing, books, bars, hotels, and shows,” reports TechCrunch.
“We can just keep turning on more and more categories, just like Amazon did, using the same infrastructure/architecture,” explains Lanman.
Users access Livestar through their Facebook login and can access their friends’ reviews. Livestar also allows users to refine searches using keywords to better define categories.
“Livestar pre-computes restaurants your friends are likely to recommend, simplifying the process even further,” notes the post. “If a friend’s recommendation isn’t pre-populated, Livestar lets them enter it in.”
Online ticket selling company Eventbrite continues to set itself apart as the “go-to platform” for e-ticket sales. “And it’s announcing a major milestone to prove it today: It’s sold more than $1 billion tickets in total,” reports TechCrunch.
Between January 2009 and December 2010, the site grew from $100 million in sales to $400 million. But it only took 18 months for Eventbrite to more than double its sales in order to hit that $1 billion mark.
“Part of its revenue growth comes from Eventbrite leveraging social networks like Twitter and Facebook. In its announcement, Eventbrite noted that on average, organizers receive an additional $2.52 in ticket sales whenever a user shares an event on Facebook,” according to TechCrunch.
Another part of its growth is the push toward mobile platforms, including the launch of an iPad app and credit card reader to allow for easy mobile payments.
Twitter will roll out its advertising products including promoted tweets, promoted trends and promoted accounts to 50 countries by the end of the year. The launch will begin in Latin America and Western Europe.
“The expansion marks the next stage for the six-year-old tech start-up’s development, with Twitter seeking to turn its 140 million users into revenue,” explains The Hollywood Reporter.
“Asked about the next stage of development for the company, founder Jack Dorsey left the door open for a flotation, or potentially a sale to a technology giant such as Google,” adds the article.
Twitter claims that, unlike Facebook, it is not struggling with the rise of mobile usage by its base, saying its mobile ads are performing well.
“We were born mobile,” said Adam Bain, director of revenue for Twitter. “Tweets are like water, they work whatever you put them through.”
The advertising model for Video On Demand will soon change. Some cable operators, including Comcast, allow users to fast-forward through commercials while viewing On Demand content, but operators plan to change this within the next few months in an attempt to better monetize the service.
“We have 400 million monthly VoD views on Comcast. I’d love to have a dollar for every view,” explains Chip Meehan, Comcast Spotlight’s West regional VP of integrated media sales.
Meehan also projects a “tenfold” increase in ad impressions for Comcast’s VoD content within the next year.
VoD will change by offering dynamically inserted ads. Whereas current VoD offerings often show the same advertisement during every commercial break, the new ads will make the experience “more like linear TV,” according to Scott Criley, the director of new media at Harris’s Broadcast Communications division.
“That’s something that’ll appeal to viewers, advertisers and content providers, but it’s not enough to ensure the uptick in ad revenue for Comcast; that’s why they’ve also disabled the ‘trick-play’ (fast-forward) capability for a lot of their VoD content,” reports Digital Trends.
Verizon announced it will expand its 4G LTE network to 46 new markets and will introduce expanded coverage to 22 existing markets this week.
The move will push Verizon’s 4G coverage to 304 markets. The company hopes to cover 400 markets by the end of the year.
“Verizon isn’t the most popular carrier right now, as it looks to begin killing off grandfathered unlimited data plans in favor of capped plans and family share plans starting June 28,” reports CNET.
“The carrier, however, has often touted itself as the premium player in the market because of the perceived superiority of the quality of its network,” notes the post. “Verizon was the first major carrier to move to LTE, something the other carriers have all committed to or are in the process of rolling out.”
Currently, AT&T covers only 39 LTE markets. Sprint is in the process of covering its first six and T-Mobile USA plans to begin 4G coverage by next year.
AT&T has wider 4G coverage on its HSPA+ networks, although the technology has slower data speeds than LTE.
Global TV shipments fell 8 percent from the previous year and 32 percent from the fourth quarter of 2011 to the first quarter of 2012, reports the NPD Group.
“Soft demand and cautious expectations about the upcoming year in many parts of the TV supply chain have led to a slowdown in shipments,” explains Paul Gagnon of NPD DisplaySearch.
“Key component prices, such as LCD panels, are not expected to decline much in 2012, and many brands are concentrating on improving their bottom line,” he adds. “Both of these trends will contribute to slowing unit volume among a price conscious consumer market.”
Despite declines, demand for larger screens continues to grow, with the average LCD screen size increasing to more than 35-inches for the first time.
Samsung maintains the largest market share in flat panel displays with 26 percent, while LG has 15 percent and Sony 9 percent.
China remains the largest region for TV shipments, followed by the Asia Pacific market region that includes India, Korea and Australia.
Based on a Supreme Court ruling yesterday, ABC and Fox will not be required to pay fines for broadcast indecency.
“The justices unanimously threw out fines and other penalties against Fox and ABC television stations that violated the Federal Communications Commission policy regulating curse words and nudity on television airwaves,” reports The Washington Post.
The ruling determined that the networks could not have known in advance that the objectionable material (including obscenities uttered during award shows and brief nudity in an episode of “NYPD Blue”) would lead to fines.
However, the decision did not address the broader issue regarding the FCC’s basic ability to regulate the airwaves or the possible need to revise its indecency policy.
“Broadcasters had argued that the revolution in technology that has brought the Internet, satellite television and cable has made the rules themselves obsolete,” explains the article. “The regulations apply only to broadcast channels.”
“The Supreme Court decided to punt on the opportunity to issue a broad ruling on the constitutionality of the FCC indecency policy. The issue will be raised again as broadcasters will continue to try to grapple with the FCC’s vague and inconsistent enforcement regime,” suggested First Amendment expert Paul Smith in his brief supporting the broadcasters.
In an effort to boost theater attendance, cinemas across the U.S. are expanding their screenings to include concerts, plays, operas and sports events.
Among this year’s offerings have been the Metropolitan Opera’s performance of “Twilight of the Gods,” a live version of radio show “This American Life,” the National Theatre’s stage production “Frankenstein,” and the Mayweather-Cotto boxing match.
“Along with improved food offerings, bigger screens and 3D projections, theaters nationwide are programming more so-called alternative content,” reports the Los Angeles Times. “Hoping to reverse long-term declines in theater attendance by luring customers away from an increasing array of entertainment options in the home, they’re showing live rock concerts, plays, operas, boxing matches, college basketball games and even public radio shows, often to sold-out houses.”
Approximately two-thirds of the 40,000 U.S. screens have converted to digital, making electronic delivery via satellite possible. “In the next two years 2,000 theaters with a combined 15,000 screens will be connected to a new satellite distribution network,” notes the article.
This opens up new options for exhibitors, especially during traditionally low attendance times.
At $25 per ticket, some 400 theaters screened the Mayweather-Cotto match in May. “At many of those theaters, the fight was sold out and was, on a per-screen basis, the second-highest-grossing offering that day, behind Marvel Studios’ blockbuster ‘The Avengers,'” explains the article.
“With the technology we’re putting into place, we will have a high-quality digital delivery system that can support both live entertainment and theatrical exhibition,” said Darcy Antonellis, chief technology officer for Warner Bros. “It’s the natural evolution of digital cinema.”
The newly rebranded Dolby Theatre (former Kodak Theatre), home of the Academy Awards, reopened this week with new signage and a new audio-visual system.
As previously reported by ETCentric, Dolby Laboratories recently signed a 20-year deal with CIM Group (Hollywood & Highland Center owner) for naming rights to the facility.
The four-level, 3,400-seat venue has been outfitted with Dolby 3D projection and the company’s new Dolby Atmos audio system. The premiere of Disney-Pixar’s new film “Brave” will be the first to showcase the new sound format.
Dolby Surround 7.1 uses different audio channels, while Dolby Atmos object-based sound uses individual speakers rather than entire speaker arrays. In the newly outfitted facility, Dolby Atmos also adds overhead speakers installed on 50-foot trusses.
Atmos offers the equivalent of 128 channels, as compared to the six channels of 5.1 or the eight of 7.1.
“With sound ‘objects,’ directors and mixers stop thinking about which channel a sound goes on,” reports Variety. “They place the source of the sound in space relative to the listener — that is, they make the sound source an ‘object’ — and then the playback device routes the sound to whatever speakers give the desired effect.”
“The Atmos decoder learns all the speaker positions and the acoustics of the room, then the decoder uses the speakers that place the sound where the filmmakers wanted it, whether there are two speakers in the room or 102,” explains the article.
South Korean manufacturers are betting big on a new line of high-end TVs that are much thinner than traditional flat screens and display sharper images.
“Undeterred by the 3D TV flop and failure of Internet connected TVs to boost sales, Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. are hoping OLED technology will keep them ahead in an intensely competitive business that has caused losses in the TV division of Japan’s Sony for the past eight years,” reports TVNewsCheck.
High-end TV manufacturers are facing heightened competition from Chinese makers — as well as from smartphones and tablets, as consumers are accessing more content on portable devices.
“But Samsung and LG are giddy about a technological leap that they are comparing to the invention of the first color TV in the early 1950s,” suggests the article. “Short for organic light-emitting diode, the wafer-thin OLED TVs boast vivid, saturated colors and deeper contrast than the TV displays now available.”
The new TVs will arrive in Europe, Asia and North America for the holiday shopping season. Retail is expected to initially be at least $9,000 for a 55-inch set, about twice as expensive as current models that size.
“Samsung and LG weathered the downturn in the TV industry well enough to keep cash to invest in production lines for the new display technology,” notes the article. “They think its profitability will not fall as quickly as LCD TVs because the technological gap is wide enough to keep late-coming rivals at bay.”
Sharp has added a 90-inch television to its AQUOS line, the largest LED TV available in the United States.
The massive 1080p TV nearly triples the viewing area of a 55-inch HD units. Customers may have some difficulty mounting it on the wall, however, as it weighs 141 pounds and is 5-inches thick.
The Sharp LC-90LE745U features “a 120Hz refresh rate as well as Sharp’s AquoMotion 240 technology that helps avoid blurring images during fast-paced scenes in action movies or live sporting events,” reports Digital Trends. “In addition, the television is ready for 3D playback and comes with two pairs of active-shutter glasses.”
With built in Wi-Fi, the SmartCentral user interface offers access to apps such as CinemaNow, Facebook, Hulu Plus, Netflix, Twitter, Vudu and YouTube. Video chats are made possible through Skype (camera sold separately).
“Related to the Wi-Fi connectivity, Sharp has included a service called ‘Aquos Advantage Live’ that allows a trained technician to connect to the television remotely and accurately calibrate color levels,” notes the post. “This could be particularly helpful when another family member screws up the settings when fooling around in the television menu.”
Despite its colossal size, the television only consumes about as much energy as two 75-watt light bulbs. This translates to about $28 in annual energy costs for a typical consumer.
Time Warner Cable has received a U.S. patent for technology that disables fast-forwarding of TV spots and other trick mode functions on physical DVRs, network-based DVRs and third-party recording devices.
The patent’s technology essentially offers the opposite functions of the Hopper DVR, recently launched by Dish Network.
“The ability to prevent trick mode functionality may be important for a number of reasons,” TWC writes in the patent. “Advertisers may not be willing to pay as much to place advertisements if they know that users may fast forward through the advertisement and thus not receive the desired sales message. Content providers may not be willing to grant rights in their content, or may want to charge more, if trick modes are permitted.”
Although Time Warner is unlikely to implement the features anytime soon, it has started to disconnect its Look Back tool and its Start Over function.
Look Back allows subscribers to watch a show they forgot to record within three days of its initial airing.
“The penchant viewers with DVRs have for skipping ads has prompted other multichannel providers to look at ways to preserve advertising placed in TV programs,” notes TVNewsCheck. Comcast recently submitted a patent application that details how it could deliver alternative commercials to subscribers that hit the fast-forward button on their remotes to skip ads.”
A look over time at the evolution of computing platforms shows PCs overtaking mainframes and minicomputers, and the coming ascendancy of mobile.
This year Android will surpass Windows in number of devices shipped, while iOS is expected to pass Windows by next year.
This week’s Microsoft announcement of Surface may indicate an abandonment of the software giant’s business model that has worked for more than three decades.
The industry is re-integrating with single companies now working to create operating systems, stores, service, and product design.
Apple was the first to go down this path. And it has both Google and Microsoft following in its footsteps.
“Whether Microsoft or Google will be successful in their integration efforts remains to be seen,” writes Horace Dediu for mobile firm Asymco. “The challenges are immense as the value of the existing chains are enormous and the bonds that tie the company to them very strong. Breaking these ties will seem like value destruction and corporate antibodies will be set loose to kill the transitions.”
The post offers compelling charts that graphically describe the changes afoot.
