Category: media-and-expression

Goodbye IT Conversations…

IT Conversations has ceased producing podcats

Since it’s inception, IT Conversations has published over 3300 audio programs. After ten years of operation and six years with me at the helm, all that is coming to an end. Those of us involved in the day-to-day operation and management of the site have decided that IT Conversations has run its course. We will continue to publish shows until around December 1, 2012. We’re going to get the very best of what’s left in the queue out the door before we turn out the lights. You can read Doug Kaye’s announcement and more of my thoughts.

Our goal has always been to publish good, quality shows that will stand the test of time and we’ve always envisioned them being around for a long time. I’m happy to report that the shows we’ve published will continue to be available through an agreement with the Internet Archive. We appreciate your support over the years.

Its a sad day and its fitting for IT conversations to go out with a podcast.

When Doug Kaye created IT Conversations in 2003, most people didn’t know what a podcast was and why they should care. Yet the idea spread and today, all kinds of people and organizations regularly release content to people throughout the world. Doug joins Phil Windley to bid farewell to the Conversations Network. They discuss the background of why Doug chose to be a podcast pioneer and how the network helped revolutionize a new way to distribute interesting content.

ITC and the conversation network was simply amazing and I even got a interview from Jon Udell in the past on to the network along with a early Thinking Digital session.

It will be a shame to see it go and passing all the media on to archive.org makes so much sense, you couldn’t have wished for a better solution. If only all sites would consider something like this when shutting down… I even considered joining Team ITC at one point way back when I was working for the BBC WorldService in 2004. Not for the money, but just because I wanted to help as I was getting so much out of each and every podcast. On top of that, ITC model was what I recommended the BBC should do way back in the early days of BBC podcasts.

Recently I have to say I’ve not listened to a ITC podcast for a while and when I did I tended to skip through it as it was usually not so interesting. I use to spend Sunday evenings listening to them in one go while reading and blogging that got replaced with TED talks. But its worth mentioning ITC bringing PopTech to my brain for the first time. Way before TED had even consider videos, PopTech was making there recordings available via ITC and frankly I was blown away. It might be why I still have a love for PopTech deep down.

IT Conversations brought all these great things to me and anyone who wanted to subscribe or listen.

DougKaye I have nothing but joy and respect for what you created and your decision to stop it and transfer the media. Total respect for everything you’ve done over years… And thanks for feeding my mind with the best of the best. Don’t know how you did it but so glad you did! I know you inspired many of us including the likes of Leo Laporte of the Twit network. You were an inspiration to many… You can hold your head up high forever more…

What Cinema can learn from TV?

Adopt the internet

A few blog posts ago I was talking about Cinema and the audience using their phones in the cinema to share the experience and hinted at some other things Cinema can learn from TV.

Me and Hugh were arguing in FYG, Television has gotten the cluetrain like the film industry hasn’t yet. (it has a long way to go, to be at one with the internet but alas…). Live TV is the new fashion and teamed up with Twitter its giving TV a way to do explicit feedback like never before. I’ve attended so many talks where twitter integration is taken as the norm, actually what was weird was hearing our European public broadcasters talking about using Facebook instead of Twitter hashtags.

So generally…

Live TV + Twitter = Good experience

I wonder if Cinema and the film industry can learn something from this?

Cinema + Twitter = ? experience

I already expressed an dislike of people using there phones in the cinema due to the light but if you could tweet without ruing the darkness of a cinema, now that would be interesting… Of course the ability for people to be able to take pictures of the screen is a massive problem but tweeting about scenes could maybe increase the engagement (specially tweeting alongside premieres). Maybe theres a way to replay a hashtag in real-time along with a film?

This could work if films adopted something like status.net along film releases rather than using twitter per-say. Being in control of the microblogging means spoilers can be moderated and that replay feature can work. However your never really going stop people using Twitter oppose to using your own backchannel system? If it did work, imagine what you could do with the DVD, Bluray, digital download releases. Replay the best/insightful comments, add the directors comments, tweets from the actors, staff, etc… Who knows?

Maybe the whole aping TV is a distraction and there is something which it can do which is more interesting and more native to films? I had thought about using sensors within the cinema, perceptive media style? But its strikes me Hollywood is never going to allow customisation of films. Just like TV doesn’t want to see the same. Maybe sending the stats to the Internet and visualising them could be somewhat interesting? But hardly ground breaking… Sure a few people are thinking about this and will make a killing…

UK Pirates Are Big Box Office Spenders

Been a bit of noise about the UK darknet from a survey OFCOM did recently, a lot of the findings Musicmatch already highlighted in their study previously…

Pirates Are Big Box Office Spenders

the comprehensive study suggests that many pirates spend as much as 300 per cent more on media than a person that doesn’t download.

The information was retrieved as part of a survey of just under 4,500 internet users, aged 12 and older. In conclusion, the researchers found that of the 16 per cent that said they downloaded, the majority were termed, “hybrids,” because they also paid for movies, music, concerts and such like. Ultimately it was found that these hybrids, could spend much, much more than those that didn’t pirate at all. In a three month test period, 100 per cent legal movie fans spend around £35. Comparatively, the hybrid pirates – which are sounding more and more like something out of Davy Jones fish-head crew – spent almost £60 in the same period.

Torrent Freak goes into much more detail, even the RIAA agrees with some of the higher level results.

What I want to know is, will this change the TV ecosystem in anyway? I unfortunately don’t think so…

Another head in the sand moment…?

Rules of watching a movie

Another thing I saw from Hugh Garry which got me thinking…

Switching ‘on’ your phone during a movie is something that the film industry is going to have to get used to. It’s a new rule of cinema – people like to share their lives and that includes capturing screen shots of the film they are watching – it’s happening and it’s creating spreadable media.

I use to be a usher at a couple of cinemas in the past including the Odeon chain.

As a usher, your meant to make sure everything is ok in the screens. Things like people talking too loud and people talking on their phones is a reject-able offense in a cinema (although its worth noting they can pretty much throw you out for anything). Of course its quite sometime since I’ve done ushering in a cinema and are shocked by how slack some ushers have got with there duties… However things have changed, rather than people talking on the phone, there texting, tweeting and generally doing stuff on the phone.

This doesn’t cause such a distraction but most smartphones have a crazy backlights which can literally light up a small cinema. So when your tweeting in the dark, everything is lit up for a short while. This is painful…

However saying all this… I’m seriously wondering how much better the experience of the cinema would be if you could pull your phone our and tweet for example. I generally tweet at the end while the credits are rolling up and the house lights have dimmed up.

Yes I understand the fear of people recording parts with there phones and the like but seriously? I wonder about the actual damage of people sharing photos of parts of the film with there friends. As someone once said all publicity is good publicity… If someones tweeting to their friends, there doing because they feel the need to share with friends or the world. Pay attention, the intent is critical… Go with it!

Firestarting Oreilly’s Tools of change

I had the pleasure of attending and speaking at Oreilly’s Tools of Change conference in Frankfurt last week.

Tools of change or TOC for me has become the place for interesting innovations centred around publishing. Of course it makes sense because Oreilly themselves are mainly a publisher and are leading the field.

The sessions I mainly attended were around innovation in the publishing space. However a bulk of the talks centred around DRM (restrictions and rights) and moving digital workflow through-out. There was a feeling that something wasn’t being talked about and that thing was Amazon. In the same way Apple came into the music market with the savour, there was a feeling the same might be coming true.

I attended quite a few sessions but I didn’t speak up till I attended a session titled… Innovators Track: Innovative Business Models. I started tweeting some things which I thought were fair. And then I thought, well I’m going to make my feelings known rather than stay silent. The crux of my complaint was I felt like we were at a sales pitch and I wasn’t the only one who felt it. A guy I was standing next to turned to me and said, “never send your sales staff to a conference…” And you know what he was darn right… Anyway I asked my question, which was something like “Ummmmm, wheres the innovation and creativity in what you guys are doing?” That didn’t go down too well but Sophie Rochester who was due to chair the panel I would be on later, skillfully asked the question and also make it clear this wasn’t really about creativity and innovations and our session later would be the place for that. She also suggested that from a outsiders perspective it may not look like much but it was. I say nothing more, but people at lunch kept saying agreeing with me…

After lunch I went to the Outsmarting Piracy session with Ruediger Wischenbart; Jens Klingelhöfer; Sergey Anuriev; Richard Mollet; Joe Wikert. It was very interesting… At one point I was shaking my head thinking goodness this is more head in the sand stuff but then they spoke to Sergey who was russian and gave a good talk about the fact 90% of all ebooks are traded over the dark/under net. They actually work with the pirates to advertise and learn more about there audience.

Some people scoffed, but its the best they can/could do… This was followed up with Joe Wikert from Oreilly who gave the non-DRM rational. Richard Mollet piped up and said how he was advising the UK government against relaxing DRM and the like. Some lady asked the question of the panel, are any of you guys pirates? Everyone was a little startled. Then one by one, they said yes I have done something in the past which could be classed as piracy. Everyone except Richard Mollet. He refused the notion that he may have engaged in any level of piracy. I think that was when I lost it and asked/told the question saying.

“I am ashamed to be British and have you and people like you advising the UK government without any knowledge or understanding of the hardship and pain the average person has to endure with the likes of DRM!!!”

He used the crappy excuse that he’s never killed anyone but can still have a view on the punishment.

Anyway this DRM discussion carried on in the main hall as the DRM Debate with Joe Wikert and Bill McCoy.
Clearly the Book/Publishing industry is trying to grapple with DRM and those who get rid earlier will thrive at the expense of those who are too late to change.

The reason why I was speaking is because my panel session was centred around the concept of Perceptive Media or more specifically Perceptive publishing. Slides are of course on Slideshare. I shared the panel which was titled Innovations in Storytelling with Dan Franklin from Random House; Justin Keenan and Jennifer Lee from Plympton. It was moderated by Sophie Rochester again.

Sophie Rochester gathers together an incredibly talented group of creators in a panel devoted to innovations in storytelling! From the futuristic personalization taking place at the BBC’s Perceptive Media, to the masterfully interactive work of RH’s Dan Franklin, to the engagingly addictive genre fiction serialization of Plympton – this session will give you a glimpse at how some of our best technologists and storytellers are working together to craft ever richer “reading” experiences.

The session was genuinely full of interesting ideas and innovations from all around. I think I tweeted I would really like to work with the rest of panel one day.

Oreilly conferences are so well put together and I felt well looked after but not smothered. Oh have I missed them… Look forward to attending another one with more innovation from BBC R&D.

Perceptive Media at TedXBristol

This is my high level talk I gave for TedXBristol.

The powerpoint is a little screwy on the presentation but generally you get the gist. Its also the ones where I decided to mock up a clip of the introduction of Flashforward to give a instant view of what Perceptive Media could do.

I’m waiting to see how long it is till the video clip is taken down off Youtube for possible copyright violations (which I feel is totally wrong and it fits under transformative works). I used the same videos at Oreilly Tools of Change to amazing effect, although I do feel with more time I should have found some text to change slightly. Maybe I’ll do this for the writer workshops at the end of the month?

I could swear I wrote up my feelings about TedXBristol somewhere already, but can’t seem to find it right now.

Either way, I’m very happy to see it online and look forward to the feedback from people interested in Perceptive Media. I thank the team for inviting me and I look forward to spending more time in Bristol in the near future and good to see Bristol growing its digital community…

Looper Directors Commentry

Looper poster

I heard about the director’s commentary for looper via my rss reader and though it was well worth a another watch anyway after watching it at the Salford Cinema Club first time.

The idea is quite simple… Download the extra track to your phone or mp3 player. Go to the cinema again and  watch the film again with the extra sound track.

Johnson has recorded a commentary track that is meant to be heard in-theater. (Of course, he strongly cautions against listening to it on a first viewing.) Considering that the new film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis has a much higher profile and a plot better suited to directorial untangling than Bloom, Johnson was besieged by requests from fans to repeat the experiment.

The Looper commentary is a totally different track than the version that will be included on the eventual DVD/Blu-ray release. This version is more technical and detailed, meaning don’t expect any anecdotes about how the actors got along or what the weather was like during filming. There’s an introduction up top that instructs users on how to sync up for the optimum viewing experience

The only problem I had was the introduction says to pause and unpause when the tristar logo comes up on the screen. In the UK it wasn’t Tristar, it was something else. Which caused a moment confusion and then a delay. It wasn’t too bad a delay but certainly meant seeing something then the director referring to it a second or so later.

The other thing is the volume… My headphones are a bit low and in the cinema it was sometimes hard to hear the director talking.

Overall it was a good experience and I would recommend it for films like Looper, Donnie Darko, Inception. Yes you can wait for the DVD/Bluray but its like having a friend nudging you with useful facts in the cinema.

Could this be a signal of things to come in the future? Don’t think so but if the syncing is cleared up it could open the door to much more interesting experiences and heck even personalised experiences layed on top of a mass medium. You could certainly see Perceptive Media in such a role…

Cloud Atlas USA Oct 2012, UK release Feb 2013!

Clouds

I tweeted…

If true, expect another #donniedarko. Bad mistake not to go worldwide first.
‘#CloudAtlas‘ gets new UK release date
http://m.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/news/a404612/cloud-atlas-gets-new-uk-release-date.html

A friend asked me to explain…

Cloud Atlas is now due to be released in the UK, a good 4 months after the American box office! This is crazy and frankly insane in this day of age (and with such a big movie)

What did I mean by quoting Donnie Darko?

Donnie Darko did pretty badly in the American box office, it was later released in the UK and did really well. So well that by the time it was released on DVD in America, the buzz from the UK and other markets translated to really good DVD sales.

Donnie Darko had its first screening at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2001, and debuted in United States theaters in October 2001 to a tepid response. Shown on only 58 screens nationwide, the film grossed $110,494 in its opening weekend.This may likely have been the result of the movie containing major scenes involving a plane falling out of the sky, and thus coinciding with the Sept 11th terrorist attacks, many distributors and theaters were unwilling to house the film at that time.By the time the film closed in United States theaters on April 11, 2002, it had earned just $517,375.It ultimately grossed $4.1 million worldwide.

The film was originally released on VHS and DVD in March 2002. Strong DVD sales led Newmarket Films to release a “Director’s Cut” on DVD in 2004. Bob Berney, President of Newmarket Films, described the film as “a runaway hit on DVD,” citing United States sales of more than $10 million.

A tale or two about piracy

Speeding car

I really wanted to work with Musicmetric to do something like they have now done. Gain some real insight into what media habits people really are and highlight the very interesting innovation happening on the dark/undernet.

Interestingly Manchester was named the biggest UK city for piracy.

The research said there were more illegal downloads per person in the city than any other in the country, followed by Nottingham and Southampton. The statistics, from monitoring service Musicmetric, conclude that in the first half of 2012, UK users illegally shared over 40 million albums and singles.

Well I never… Whats that quote again?

Manchester does today what the rest of the world does tomorrow?

Looking at actual downloads is also interesting. Even Armin Van Buuren gets a high rating… of course I wouldn’t know anything about this…

Outside of this massive amount of music piracy data, it would be great to do the same for TV and Films.

In related news… I saw this in a few places (BBC) and (torrentfreak)… How the pirate bay got started.

By the end of 2004, a year after the site launched, the tracker was tracking a million peers and over 60,000 torrent files. Around the same time the founders also noticed that it was not only Scandinavians developing interested in their site.

In fact, by now 80% of their users came from other parts of the world. Because of increasing worldwide popularity The Pirate Bay team completely redesigned the site, which became available in several languages in July 2005.

For me personally I remember going to Sweden to visit Anna, a friend of Sarah’s. Anna’s boyfriend and me got talking about computers and he showed me the crazy speed available to them in 2004. I remember plugging into his network switch and be shocked to find a real IP (non-Nat). Then he showed me a site with a pirate ship. It didn’t say Piratebay but something like it in Swedish (maybe Piratbyrån). At the time SuperNova was all the rage and I did scoff at the idea. He then showed me how fast he could download a ISO of Debian. The speeds were not only shocking but earth shattering to me on my 512k ADSL line. 10meg/sec download in 2004 was unreal.

If only I had understood what a force this site would become… Specially when I came back in 2010 to find my flatmate (tim) and a bunch of people (loz and others) surrounded by boxes and boxes of 50k of pirate party flyers!

Cloud Atlas trailer

I remember hearing about this book and thinking this would be good as a film. Well unknown to me, they made it a film which is coming this year. Not only that its by the Wachowski brothers. Yes I can hear the boo’s and hsss’s from here. But frankly I will give them there dues because I still love the Matrix trilogy (yes I still like reloaded and revolutions, not as much as matrix one of course) and I found Speed Racer actually rather good.

Theres a section at the end of Speed Racer which is very much like the tailer for Cloud Atlas. Emotional and gets you caught up. The premise that everything is connected is of course interesting to me and many others. Amazing that its such a long trailer.