Netflix is taking new steps to boost its content offerings. The streaming video and DVD rental service has plans to produce an original horror series to premiere next year and may potentially acquire two broadcast dramas.
“Netflix describes the 13-episode horror series, ‘Hemlock Grove,’ as a ‘gripping tale of murder, mystery and monsters set in a ravaged Pennsylvania steel town,'” reports Mashable. “The show is based on a Brian McGreevy novel by the same name and is being directed and produced by Eli Roth. ‘X-Men’ actress Famke Janssen and ‘Anna Karenina’ actor Bill Skarsgard are among those who have already been cast for the series.”
The streaming service is considering buying rights to the recently cancelled Fox show “Terra Nova” as well as ABC’s “The River,” which is expected to be cancelled after the first season.
“For Netflix, amassing a large stable of original series is just one way the service is attempting to win the broader industry battle over content,” the post states.
According to research firm IHS Screen Digest, online movie viewing will exceed viewing on DVDs and Blu-ray this year.
Legal online viewing is expected to grow from 1.4 billion movies last year to 3.4 billion this year. Meanwhile, viewing movies on physical discs will decline from 2.6 billion to 2.4 billion.
Streaming services from Netflix and Amazon represent 94 percent of paid online movie viewing.
“The report highlights the price disparity between online purchases and movies sold in retail shops,” reports Bloomberg. “Consumers paid an average of 51 cents for every movie consumed online, compared with $4.72 for physically purchased videos, IHS found.”
“We are looking at the beginning of the end of the age of movies on physical media like DVD and Blu-ray,” says Dan Cryan, IHS senior principal analyst. “But the transition is likely to take time: almost nine years after the launch of the iTunes Store, CDs are still a vital part of the music business.”
Adobe is currently offering a free beta download of Photoshop CS6 for both Mac and Windows. The first major upgrade in two years, CS6 is expected to hit the market by June.
“Adobe says highlights of the next version of CS6 include an addition to its content-aware component called Patch, similar to Clone, where users can choose a sample area they want to patch and then blend pixels ‘for a stunning result,’” reports Digital Trends.
Adobe is emphasizing dramatic enhancements to speed and performance for the new release.
“The final product will come in two versions — the standard Photoshop CS6 and the more expensive Extended edition with its extra features,” explains the post. “The free beta version offers users the full Photoshop experience.”
The latest Android tablet from Acer is the quad-core Iconia Tab A510, which the company claims is its fastest tablet to date.
According to Acer, the upgraded processor offers “three times the graphics performance compared to previous generation processors.”
The A510 will include the latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Additional features: 10.1-inch screen, 1280 x 800 resolution, 1080p video playback, Dolby Digital sound, 32GB memory and two cameras.
Pre-installed apps include Polaris Office 3.5, Evernote, Netflix, Kindle and Google Music.
Pre-orders for the $450 tablet began yesterday. “While there are no words yet on when the tablet will ship, the special edition models will celebrate and sponsor the upcoming 2012 Olympic games in London by featuring the five Olympic rings on the back of the tablet,” reports Digital Trends.
Spotify has added 12 new tools to its app approach to music streaming, including: TweetVine, Def Jam, Filtr, Digster, Classify, Hot or Not, Domino and more.
According to Digital Trends, Spotify “now has more than 10 million active users and over three million paying subscribers.”
“For all its faults (and it isn’t faultless), the service is capitalizing on its idea of being ‘the OS of music,’ and consumers are liking it,” indicates the post.
The majority of the new apps address music search and discovery, tour dates, new releases, curated playlists, other related data and social interaction. Digital Trends provides a brief description of each app.
Competition in this space has seen numerous changes of late, more of which is expected to play out this year. “We think there’s room to grow — and we think there’s room for multiple services,” Rdio CEO Drew Larner recently explained in an interview. “It’s inevitable we’re going to see a shakeout, probably in the next 12 to 16 months. There’s going to be some consolidation.”
Cameron Pace Group is focusing on 3D workflow and business models, and joining groups to rally support for their efforts. The Sports Video Group this week welcomed CPG as a platinum sponsor.
“When Cameron and Pace joined forces 12 years ago, their mission was to create a new entertainment experience for feature films,” reports SVG. “More recently, the mission of their company, which was formed last year, has expanded to include the non-theatrical broadcast world.”
CPG has been extending this mission to include sports broadcasting. The company supports “ESPN 3D and CBS Sports, with their 3D sports productions, including US Open tennis, The Masters golf, NBA All-Star Game, and MLB Home Run Derby.”
CPG’s sports production is centered on the company’s Shadow D technology, an integrated 2D/3D camera system that captures both 2D and 3D images at the same time.
“By combining the 2D and 3D deliverables, CPG hopes to push the ubiquity of 3D in all markets, whether feature film, episodic television, or sports broadcast,” explains SVG.
At the Adobe Digital Marketing Summit in Salt Lake City, Viacom unveiled a new ad service called Surround Sound.
The service will enable advertisers to reach audiences across every screen on which Viacom has a presence — from television and online video to premium displays, mobile or other digital platforms.
Surround Sound will be available for Viacom media networks such as MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Spike and VH1. It is powered by Adobe’s AudienceManager platform.
“With Surround Sound we’re able to extend those audience buys across all of our properties, find those individual unique audience segments — what we’re calling ‘pinpoint accuracy’ — to be able to serve them targeted and most relevant ad experiences,” explains Josh Cogswell, SVP of digital products at Viacom.
Surround Sound offers advertisers scalable media buys across nearly 100 million homes on-air, more than 80 million unique visitors online, and the mobile and email users the company reaches globally.
A recent Pew Internet study showed that 73 percent of search users agree that a search engine keeping track of their searches is an invasion of privacy.
Google’s effort to combine its privacy policy across its properties is clearly at odds with how comfortable its users feel about how they will use personal data.
Google recognizes that it needs to gather more information about us to remain relevant and provide us with ads we care about. But people do not want to use Google+ so it has sought out data on us in ways that cause us to wonder whether they are “becoming evil.”
“The only reason anyone uses the word evil about Google, is because Google asked us to,” comments Gizmodo. “When it said that it wasn’t evil, it immediately invited an argument.”
Google has violated its users’ trust. It tracked Safari users without their permission. It has begun promoting its own products in its search results. It has given increased importance to ads over search results.
“The case against Google is for the first time starting to outweigh the case for it,” ads the post.
In a related story from the Los Angeles Times, Google users are suing the company over the “deceptive” privacy changes: “The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan by David Nisenbaum, Pedro Marti and Allison C. Weiss on behalf of Google and Android users who signed up for any Google user account from August 19, 2004, to February 29, 2012, and continued to use a Google account on or after March 1, 2012, when Google’s new privacy policy went into effect.”
According to Centris Research, one in four U.S. homes had a Blu-ray player in Q4 of 2011, an increase of 47 percent from the previous year.
DVD player ownership also showed gains, increasing to 91 percent of households, a 4 percent increase over 2010. And DVR household penetration rose 4 percent during the time period, to 38 percent.
The Centris report, which was based on 2,000 monthly survey respondents, also found that HDTV penetration grew 6 percent to 63 percent, and “high-definition TV service from multichannel video program distributors increased 11 percent to 42 percent of households,” reports Home Media Magazine.
“It is the Blu-ray market that continues to drive packaged media sales and generate higher margins for studios than standard DVD, disc rentals, transactional video-on-demand and electronic sellthrough,” explains the article. “The format also is a foundation in Hollywood’s effort to launch cloud-based digital locker UltraViolet.”
Apple is gaining ground in the mobile chip market and is expected to pass long-standing chip-maker Intel for the top spot.
“With demand for the iPhone and iPad growing at an unprecedented pace, and growth in the PC market a bit more lethargic, Apple’s mobile processor business is fast closing the gap on Intel’s. In fact, there’s not much of a gap to close,” AllThingsD reports, adding “…Apple will almost certainly pass Intel this year. And if it swaps in its own chip for the Intel chip in the MacBook Air, it may not only pass it, but claim a decent lead, as well.”
“In 2011, Apple shipped about 176 million chips in its iOS devices, capturing a 13.5 percent market share,” explains the article. “Intel shipped just .4 percent more — 181 million chips, enough to snag a 13.9 percent market share.”
It should be noted that Samsung manufactures Apple’s processors.
Intel has been trying to expand into the smartphone and tablet markets, where it so far has little presence. Medfield, the company’s new Atom chip will reportedly be sent to handsets and tablets by this year’s end.
Nokia’s Windows Phone strategy is having disastrous results where in the UK its market share has dropped from 23 percent in September 2010 to 4.6 percent in February 2012. A survey of major European markets confirms the lack of interest in Nokia’s Windows phone.
As “Nokia is Microsoft’s last gasp in mobile,” the results put into question whether Microsoft’s mobile strategy can succeed. Reportedly, Microsoft was disliked by the carrier community and this was not helped by its acquisition of Skype. “There is no coming back for Microsoft, not with or without Nokia,” comments Communities Dominate Brands — a blog of the book by the same title.
Moreover, the retail channel is not supporting Nokia’s Lumia (Windows Phone) sales, preferring to sell Android instead.
Ironically, Nokia has more attractive phones including the N9, N950 and the 808 PureView (award-winner at the recent Mobile World Congress). But these are all based on the outmoded Symbian OS.
“The Microsoft strategy for Nokia is a certain road to death,” suggests the post. “The Lumia smartphones will doom Nokia. The Windows Phone OS is never going to be the third ecosystem. The sooner the Nokia Board see the facts, and make the right decision, the sooner Nokia can start onto the road to recovery.”
Casting and production has begun for a new media project called “Cybergeddon,” intended to serve as “a groundbreaking motion picture event which will bring to life the growing threat of cybercrime,” according to a BusinessWire press release.
Anthony E. Zuiker and his production company Dare to Pass teamed with Yahoo! and Dolphin Digital Studios to launch the project. Zuiker turned to Norton by Symantec for “technical credibility and security insights to help inform and guide the narrative.”
From the press release: “’Cybergeddon’ is the evolution of the crime genre,” says Zuiker. “Through an invaluable partnership with Norton and embracing the forward-thinking vision of Dolphin Entertainment, ‘Cybergeddon’ will be a motion picture event released through Yahoo!’s global online distribution. Instead of opening ‘wide’ at 5000 screens, ‘Cybergeddon’ has the potential to premiere on 50 million online screens all over the world at the same time. This global distribution model is the future of storytelling with unprecedented scale.”
“Cybergeddon” is scheduled to launch on Yahoo! this Fall as a series of sequential installments, “through an immersive storytelling, social media and gaming experience,” explains the release.
The market for card readers is heating up. PayPal recently released its competitor to Square and in response, Square has announced its international expansion.
Now there is a new player in the field. Self-service ticketing platform Eventbrite is unveiling its $10 card reader for the iPad.
Paired with the new At The Door app that tracks sales, customer info and payments, the card reader enables on-site credit card payments that are service fee-free (users just have to pay for credit card processing).
There is also the option to wirelessly print tickets and receipts if consumers invest in the compatible printer.
According to the press release: “Prior to launch, the At The Door app was tested successfully with several large, high-profile events, including Meatopia, The Orange County BBQ Festival, and the IFPDA Print Faire. The At The Door Card Reader will be part of the mobile box office solution for the highly anticipated Governors Ball Music Festival — taking place on Roosevelt Island June 23-24, in New York City.”
On Friday, Facebook’s privacy policy will change its name to “Data Use Policy.” And that’s not the only thing the social network is changing.
“The changes reflect the fact that Facebook is extending its data collecting tentacles in all directions: towards people who never even signed up for Facebook, activities that aren’t clearly defined as sharing, and mediums that aren’t clearly defined as advertising,” said Sarah Downey of Abine, an online privacy company.
According to ReadWriteWeb, changes include allowing friends to give apps access to your personal information, banning multiple accounts, and requiring users to keep their profile and contact information up to date.
There are also updates on the rules for developers, some of which Facebook doesn’t even adhere to. These include making it easier for users to remove the application and deleting user data if used in inappropriate ways or if requested by the user.
Concerned? Unfortunately, if you access Facebook on Friday or thereafter, you have agreed to the new terms and there’s no way to opt out. “This Statement is take it or leave it: users agree to it simply by using Facebook,” said Downey. “Most of them will never know when or if the Terms change, let alone what they mean.”
The new Nielsen Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings service will offer clients a way to measure cross-platform traffic over TV and the Internet to aid media planning and advertising campaigns.
“The goal is to overcome challenges posed by separate media planning, buying and analysis processes for TV and the Internet, and to answer a growing demand by advertisers for cross-platform measurement tools that help them streamline their marketing strategies,” said Nielsen and partner GroupM, a media agency.
“Cross-platform metrics are essential to both buyers and sellers of advertising,” said Steve Hasker, president of media products and advertiser solutions for Nielsen. “Every day, we’re hearing from advertisers, online publishers, TV networks and agencies that a better system of measurement is required.”
The service may also add more data from additional media platforms in the future, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
