The user-generated video phenomenon hasn’t, to my knowledge, extended yet to full-length movies, but that is about to change. The New York Times’ Ginia Bellafante has this piece about LiveMansion.com, a site that plans to mix social networking with film making by enabling users to create a movie. Members of LiveMansion will be able to compete for jobs in the film, from acting to directing, although a professional will write the script.
Members will also be able to vote on who gets which jobs. The most active voters can get points that entitle them to “producer” credits on the finished product.
The site is the brainchild of Ckrush Productions, a low-budget film outfit, responsible for such sterling titles as “Artie Lange’s Beer League,” “TV the Movie,” and an upcoming National Lampoon film starring Paris Hilton. (According to Variety, the budget for the LiveMansion film is in the $1 million to $2.5 million range.)
So, forgive me if I winced when I read Bellafante’s high-minded characterization of the effort as a “democratic enterprise.”
But its greatest innovation has been to imagine movie making as a completely democratic enterprise, eliminating the need for market research by allowing the audience to vote for precisely what it wants.
Granted, she also hits the nail on the head when quotes Ckrush’s president Jeremy Dallow as saying that the “The idea here is obviously to build up an audience for the movie beforehand.” It’s a marketing stunt.
Still, this crude attempt at directly leveraging the pull of Internet web sites to build buzz or to create an audience for films is unique. Instead of merely pitching video promotions to users, LiveMansion is actively engaging users in the film’s creation, deepening the commitment of potential viewers to actually see the film.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 9:58 PM | Print | Comments (0)The New York Times’ Matt Richtel today has a top-notch summary of the emerging voice-over-Wi-Fi business. Skype, EarthLink, Cisco are among the major communications companies and suppliers that are pushing this new technology, which promises to upset the apple cart for traditional mobile voice providers.
But some of the traditional providers aren’t going to let this low-cost, margin-threatening development just steal away lucrative business. Cingular Wireless and T-Mobile, for example, plan to jump on the still-iffy Wi-Fi voice bandwagon early.
Cingular Wireless plans to introduce phones next year that will allow people to connect at home through their own wireless networks but switch to cell towers when out and about.
Later this year, T-Mobile plans to test a service that will allow its subscribers to switch seamlessly between connections to cellular towers and Wi-Fi hotspots, including those in homes and the more than 7,000 it controls in Starbucks outlets, airports and other locations, according to analysts with knowledge of the plans. The company hopes that moving mobile phone traffic off its network will allow it to offer cheaper service and steal customers from cell competitors and landline phone companies like AT&T.
“T-Mobile is interested in the replacement or displacement of landline minutes,” said Mark Bolger, director of marketing for T-Mobile. Wi-Fi calling “is one of the technologies that will help us deliver on that promise.”
One of the biggest stealth proponents of voice-over-Wi-Fi, not mentioned in the piece, is the cable industry. Cable operators don’t currently have mobile voice businesses that would be at risk from voice-over-Wi-Fi and the industry’s R&D arm is looking closely at fixed-mobile VoIP options. Moreover, a group of top operators have formed an alliance with Sprint-Nextel to explore a variety of new mobile applications, including fixed-mobile service that leverages Wi-Fi in the home but other technologies on the road.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 10:59 AM | Print | Comments (0)
A law passed by the French Senate and National Assembly last month that would force Apple to make its iTunes service interoperable with all portable music players has been found wanting by the French Constitutional Council, the highest constitutional authority in France.
The Council issued a decision on Thursday saying that parts of the law violate the constitutional protections of property. But, the decision did not go as far as saying that Apple couldn’t be forced to open up its proprietary DRM so that is music would play on all devices — the Council said that Apple has to be compensated for the use of its technology.
While the Constitutional Council highlighted the need for compensation, it was not such good news for Apple and other companies that what remained in place is the principle of forced interoperability, said Jean-Baptiste Soufron, legal director of the Association of Audionautes, a group opposed to copy restrictions. “It is good news for Apple because they receive monetary compensation, but much bigger bad news if it forces them to license iTunes,” he said. “We might see the first test case of this by the end of the year.”
For those interested in reviewing the twist-and-turns of the political ping pong ball that Apple’s DRM has become in France, Mike at TechDirt has an excellent two paragraph history. Meanwhile, the EU is probing whether the two emerging rival DVD technologies, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are violating EU competition rules. (Tip on that last item to TechLiberation Front.)
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 10:20 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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