Cross-Platform but Still No Cross-Network TV Series Promotion

By Steve Sternberg - Baseline Intelligence

The May Sweeps is coming to an end, and the broadcast networks will be airing mostly repeats and reality. As many viewers are turning to cable in search of first-run scripted series, the broadcast networks are starting to promote their new fall shows.

With average broadcast ratings declining, particularly in the summer, simply promoting yourself on your own air is no longer good enough. Unfortunately, the broadcast networks are totally disinclined to do the one thing that would have an immediate positive impact: promote one another’s new series.

Wouldn’t FOX’s new Lonestar, which is not going after the typical FOX audience, benefit by being promoted in, let’s say, NBC’s Law & Order: SVU? And wouldn’t NBC’s The Event benefit by being likewise promoted on Fringe? Or the 24 series finale? This kind of reciprocal approach would benefit everyone.

But here’s the real problem. The broadcast networks don’t see all broadcast networks gaining viewers as a good thing. The only thing that really matters to them is the network standings - being number one. If you were to ask a second place network if they would rather lose 10% of their viewers and move into first place (because everyone else lost 20%), or gain 10% and remain in second place, they would almost certainly choose losing viewers and being number one.

Does anyone else see the problem here? The whole upfront buying system is designed for each network to try to lose fewer viewers than its competitors. In the 1970s and early 1980s, when the broadcast networks accounted for 90% of the viewing audience year-round, it worked quite well. In today’s media world, however, an upfront marketplace that rewards being number one, yet does not punish declining ratings, is more than anachronistic, it’s nuts.

Fifteen years ago, the average rating of the Big Four broadcast networks was about 12 times as high as the average of the top 10 rated cable networks. Today it’s only about five times higher. Guess which group has been cross-promoting among networks?

There’s no law that says broadcast ratings have to go down every year. But there are 26 new shows coming on this fall, with another 13 shows moving into new time slots. There are also a dozen or so new shows slated for mid-season. Twenty years ago, I could have told you off the top of my head at any time during the season what was on and when. Today I have to use a schedule grid to remember what’s on. And I do this for a living.

While industry insiders who talk about this stuff all the time might have a general idea of what’s on television, the average viewer at home has probably not even heard of a third of the series that are currently on the broadcast networks.

Earlier this season, I mentioned to a friend of mine that Lie to Me was one of my favorite shows. He’d never heard of it. Guess he’s not a regular FOX viewer. But what if Lie to Me had been promoted on ABC, CBS, and NBC? Its ratings could easily be 10% higher.

I was just discussing some new ABC pilots I was watching with my wife, and mentioned that ABC was looking for another Castle. Well, she had never heard of Castle. But had the network promoted it on NCIS or The Good Wife, which we watch all the time, she might have at least checked it out.

Right now, all the ancillary promos for new series probably wash out any advantage one show gets compared to another. If every broadcast network advertised on every other broadcast network, any advantage for a single show might also be washed out. But if everyone gained 10% more viewers for their new series in the process, everyone wins.

It’s clearer than ever that the best promotion for new series is actual on-air promos on traditional television. You don’t need to do extensive research. You don’t have to prove the sky is blue. When someone is watching television, they are in the mood to watch television. There is simply no question that they are also in the mood to be more receptive to promotions for other television programs - certainly more so than when they are listening to radio, reading something, or going online.

Now is the perfect time to change this last taboo. While networks like to claim otherwise, they now appeal to largely the same audience (except the CW). The average median ages of ABC, CBS, and NBC viewers are within 5 years of one another. FOX viewers are only about five years younger than ABC and NBC.

To just decide not to promote your new products to the largest pool of available and willing consumers makes no sense. The broadcast networks need to start realizing that a rising tide lifts all boats.

I have no doubt that if all the broadcast networks promoted their new shows on all the other broadcast networks, every new show would get more viewer sampling than they otherwise would. How can that be a bad thing?

Kids more likely to own a cellphone than a book, study finds

Written by Chris Cameron - ReadWriteWeb

As technology becomes more a part of our day-to-day lives, some are worried that it is stunting the education of children by taking away time from activities like reading. A startling discovery from the London-based National Literacy Trust finds that children are more likely these days to own a cell phone than they are a book. The study, which NLT will publish next week, ties cell phone penetration to the presence of books in a child's home, but are these conclusions fair to draw?

A survey of 17,000 U.K. children between the ages of 7 and 16 found that while 86% owned a cell phone, only 73% said they owned a book. The NLT believes a child's access to books has a direct effect on their reading ability, finding that 80% of children reading at their expect levels have their own books. Conversely, the same can only be said for just 58% of children not reading up to par with their age group.

"Our research illustrates the clear link with literacy resources at home and a child's reading ability," said Jonathan Douglas, Director of the NLT. "By ensuring children have access to reading materials in the home and by encouraging children to love reading, families can help them to do well at school and to enjoy opportunities throughout their life."

The connection between books and cell phones in the hands of children is a strange one for the NLT to make. In the press release announcing the study, NLT does not define what they consider to constitute "owning a book," - a significant factor that could change the way readers interpret the study. There are, however, ways to help the literacy problems by taking advantage of the popularity of mobile devices.

While children certainly seem more interested in chatting with friends on their phones than sitting quietly and reading a book, some argue that this debate shouldn't become about the media which children consume. Teacher and education blogger Vicki Davis told ReadWriteWeb that she believes kids benefit from reading on phones or computers as much as they do from paper.

"Whether on a mobile phone, iPod, Kindle, or handheld device or paper - the medium should be irrelevant. The important thing is that students can read and write, or in this case read and text," said Davis. "If ancient man had demanded that their children continue to use their tools - we would still be looking for cave walls to draw upon - paper has been an essential tool of the mass-produced industrial age and electronics are the essential produce of the interconnected information age. Education needs to wake up and harness these tools for learning!"

Redefining "Reading"
Michelle Manafy, editorial director at Information Today, says older generations need to open up their definitions of what "books" actually are. "The very notion of literacy and reading itself has evolved beyond the capacity of many who grew up with linear reading experiences to understand," she says.

"If every kid has a phone, then maybe we need to be looking much harder at creating content optimized for this reading environment, to creating a reading experience that coincides with their voracious appetite and shorter attention spans, with their tangentially and serendipitously connected non-linear reading style and socially mediated tastes," said Manafy

Mobile technology blogger Jason Harris agrees with Davis and Manafy, and adds that the drop in reading skills are likely due to a combination of factors.

"The world is changing in that mobile phones are falling into the hands of new populations, including young children," said Harris. "Of course, there's a competition for time in this age group, so if they're on their mobile phones then all leisure activities, including reading, will take a hit. But are reading scores falling because of this one factor? I doubt it."

Are Parents to Blame?
Marnie Webb, co-CEO of TechSoup Global says the technology is not to blame for the decline in reading skills. As she puts it, the onus is on the parents to make sure the kids have the same access to books as they do phones.

"It doesn't have to be an either or. We can't make it an either or," says Webb. "But that seems to me to be up to grownups [...] I have to put the books in the kid's pocket. Just like we put the phone in the kids' pockets."

Agreeing with Webb is Peggy Anne Salz, founder of MSearchGroove.com, a leading blog on mobile search. Salz says the report is "a call to parents to participate in their children's education, a process they can only improve and enhance with anytime, anywhere mobile access to educational materials."

"Read between the lines, and this is not about a connection between children having a mobile device and any drop in grade school literacy skills," adds Salz. "The report argues there is a link between having literacy resources at home and a child's reading ability. That's an access issue that mobile devices can solve for children in the U.K. and around the world."

It is certainly true that mobile handset penetration is reaching a younger and younger audience, but that is not necessarily a direct catalyst to lowering reading scores. Whether the presence of books in a home affects a child's ability to read is another argument, but it seems strange to try and hook that on mobile phone usage. As technology evolves, so too will the way kids "read" and consume information, so basing studies on the presence of older forms of information digestion may become less and less appropriate.

UPDATE: I received a response after reaching out on Twitter to LeVar Burton, known famously for his love of reading and as the host of the children's show Reading Rainbow. What did the book lover think of the fact that more children own phones than books? "I believe kids need both," he said.

Post-Digital Era Brings Traits of Web to Real World

How Marketers Are Embracing the Shift

By Teressa Izzei and Ann-Christine Diaz: AdAge

Nicholas Negroponte declared the digital revolution over in 1998, but it took adland 12 more years to rework its basic creative, technological, philosophical and procedural assumptions. Today, much of the marketing world has embraced the spirit of the digital age, and perhaps the strongest evidence is that it's doing a lot of work that's not so, well, "digital."

The best companies have harnessed the digital mindset and taken the shareable, ongoing, interactive, participatory nature of digital and created brand experiences that matter to people where they ought to -- in their real, everyday lives. Take Nike Plus and Fiat Eco Drive -- arguably the most compelling brand ideas of the last decade. They may have had a digital heart but they manifested themselves in meaningful ways

And a glance at some of the big award winners so far this season seems to reflect the shift to real-world experiences. The Grand Prize winner at the One Show Interactive was a digital idea that literally played out on the streets -- Nike Chalkbot from Wieden & Kennedy, a robot that imprinted messages of hope straight onto the course of the Tour de France -- as part of the ongoing Nike Livestrong campaign. At the Andys, the big winner was TBWA/Chiat/Day's Replay for Gatorade, an idea that started as a live event and online content venture and spilled over into broadcast.

"In a way what I think is happening is that online behavior is affecting most other areas of life at the moment," says Andreas Dahlqvist, executive creative director of DDB, Stockholm, the agency behind the real-world-leaning Fun Theory.

Powerful campaign
That campaign was an initiative to get people to change their lazy behaviors -- and ultimately, how they feel about driving environmentally friendly cars -- by allowing them to see the fun side of acting responsibly. Videos of "experiments," like the popular Piano Staircase or a trash can that delivered cartoon-style sound effects when it received a deposit, were seeded online through various channels and on The Fun Theory website. Part two was a contest that invited others to submit their own Fun Theory ideas.

"There is huge potential in using digital to enhance 'real life' experience, and I think we are just seeing the beginning of that. It's adding a new layer of value, a fourth dimension," Mr. Dahlqvist said. "It's about making digital tangible."

Pepsi and TBWA/Chiat/Day's Refresh Project funds ideas that would make the real world a better place. Rob Schwartz, chief creative officer,TBWA/Chiat/Day, L.A., said that with Refresh, the agency "didn't set out to create a 'digital idea.' We set out to make our brand idea -- Refresh -- an action. ... It's a brand idea that lets you take action to do some good in your world, your neighborhood, your street. "

For client Daffy's, New York agency Johannes Leonardo recently sent commuters on a subway scavenger hunt and put a Twitter tracker of a Daffy's truck on the retailer's site so shoppers could find out when the latest haul of discount goods were coming to their local store. It then turned a cinema ad for the brand into a live event, bringing performers from the spot to reenact their moves on the stage during a movie screening, the film of which ultimately became a shareable piece of online content for the brand.

"Most of our campaigns utilize digital media as an enabler medium, having both on and offline components, because the truth is most of our lives and emotions we share take place in the real world," says Johannes Leonardo Executive Creative Director Leo Premutico. "Digital media has created a new potential for brands because it presents the ability for its consumers to share information like never before. But a lot of the effect of that takes place where it always has, offline. The most powerful ideas for us are the ones that turn the people we're talking to into the medium for the message, rather than just the destination for it. So determining the sort of work that will do that is always more important to us than whether we should do a digital, outdoor or TV campaign."

Hollywood Eyes Shortcut to TV - New Films Would Hit Homes in 30 Days

By LAUREN A.E. SCHUKER and ETHAN SMITH - Wall Street Journal
Major Hollywood studios and one of the country's largest cable operators are in discussions to send movies to people's living-room TVs just weeks after films hit the multiplex, a step that would shake up film distribution.

During a cable industry convention last week, executives from Time Warner Cable Inc. made the first formal pitch to the Hollywood studios for what is known as "home theater on demand." The cable company presented a variety of scenarios. But the main one, which has received early support from some studio executives, would allow consumers to watch a movie at home just 30 days after its theatrical release—far earlier than the usual four months—for roughly $20 to $30 a pop.

That proposal is still being debated and talks are fluid. People close to the matter say that several studios could sign on to a version of it as soon as the fall, making the first movies available on such a system by the end of the year or early 2011.

Among the studios who have reviewed the proposal are Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros., Walt Disney Co.'s Disney Studios, General Electric Co.'s Universal Pictures, Sony Corp.'s Sony Pictures, Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures and News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox. News Corp. is the parent company of The Wall Street Journal.

While the plan could be a boon for consumers, it stands to be highly disruptive for the movie business, particularly theater owners. Hollywood would essentially be overhauling the "windowing" system which has sustained the industry for years.

Studios now maximize revenue by staggering a movie's theatrical release date and the window, or time period, when it is released later on DVD or cable TV. DVD sales don't diminish a movie's box-office take, since the discs are sold long after a theatrical run.

But maintaining windows has grown more difficult as consumers have grown accustomed to an array of devices that make it easier watch movies whenever and wherever they want.
For years, theater owners have closely guarded the theatrical window to preserve revenues. But as Hollywood's own fortunes have declined recently, studios have become more willing to challenge that system. Though box-office receipts were up by 10% last year, based almost entirely on the success of higher-priced 3-D movies, that hasn't been enough to compensate for the sharp decline in DVD revenues, which have dropped by 27% since their 2004 peak of $12 billion, according to Adams Media Research.

Early this year, Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger caused a furor among theater owners when he announced that the company would release the DVD of "Alice in Wonderland" roughly four weeks earlier than usual, shortening the exclusive theatrical window to three months from the traditional four.

Premium video on demand offerings would only create incremental revenue at first, according to industry experts, who say that an average studio, which releases roughly 20 movies annually, would initially stand to bring in just $100 million in additional revenue a year. However, the studios believe they must aggressively respond to rapidly changing consumer habits in order to retain control of their business models.

Many studio executives remark that the music industry was slow to adapt to consumer demands and was powerless when new technologies upended their industry.

Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes highlighted the balancing act at an investor conference in March, saying: "We have every interest in maintaining the strength and the resources of our theatrical distributors to make the film in a theater experience, a live experience. It's also true that people demand the films earlier in their home." (Time Warner spun off its cable operations into a freestanding company in early 2009.)

Theater owners argue that early home-viewing options would eat into ticket sales.
Tony Kerasotes, chief executive of Kerasotes Showplace Theatres LLC, said that an offering like Time Warner Cable's "would be very destructive to our business," noting that plenty of films continue to do big business in their fifth or sixth week at the box office.

"A lot of theater owners would be resistant," he said. He described a possible scenario in which exhibitors might refuse to show films that were offered too soon on video on demand. "I would hate to see things to come to that, but I could see it happening if things get bad enough."
Despite concerns over theater owners, some studios could decide to test a Time Warner Cable's proposal with smaller movies—what one media executive called a "trial balloon." That would give other studios a chance to gauge the level of theater owners' opposition, along with the damage the offering would do to DVD sales.

There are other obstacles. Premium cable channels like HBO have pre-existing deals with movie studios. A new V.O.D. offering could complicate those arrangements, which are based on pre-established release windows. Companies such as Netflix Inc., which offer movie rentals, would be less affected because they make movies available several months after they have run in theaters.

Not all the studios are eager to make their movies available at home while they're still in theaters. News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox Chairman and CEO Jim Gianopulos has told exhibitors that while his studio is exploring premium V.O.D. offerings, it is contemplating making movies available only during the period after they leave theaters.

Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures doesn't appear likely to sign up initially, according to a person briefed on the proposal.

Other studios, however, have expressed strong interest in pursuing premium video on demand, especially in the wake of massive losses from declining DVD sales and a tough economic climate that has forced studios to make fewer films.

Sony Corp. has experimented with early release of its own studio's films to its Internet-enabled Bravia televisions. Last year, for instance, it offered Bravia owners the chance to watch "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" for about $25 a month before it was released on DVD.
Sony has also explored licensing films from other studios, but has gotten little traction to date.

James Murdoch Lecture: Celebrating Copyright’s 300th Birthday

News Corp.‘s Europe, Middle East and Asia CEO James Murdoch on May 20th gave a speech to inaugurate University College London’s new Centre for Digital Humanities.

The key themes - after three centuries, copyright is more important than ever because cultural industries need their intellectual property protected.

It's a long bit of copy but worth reading.....so please follow the link here -

Who is easily manipulated?

Who is easily manipulated?

Sometimes (and too often) marketers work to manipulate people. I define manipulation as working to spread an idea or generate an action that is not in a person's long-term best interest.

The easiest people to manipulate are those that don't demand a lot of information, are open to messages from authority figures and are willing to make decisions on a hunch, particularly if there's a promise of short-term gains.

If you want to focus on the short run and sell something, get a vote or gather a mob, the easiest place to start is with populations that leave themselves open to manipulation.

There are habits and activities that leave people open to manipulation. I'm not saying they are wrong or right, just pointing out that these behaviors make you open to being manipulated...

Here are a few general categories of behaviors that manipulators seek out:

Believing something because you heard someone say it on a news show on cable TV.

Being a child (or acting like one).

Buying penny stocks.

Repeating a mantra heard from a figurehead or leader of a tribe without considering whether it's true.

Trying to find a short cut to lose weight, make money or achieve some other long-term goal.

Ignoring the scientific method and embracing unexamined traditional methods instead.

Focusing on (and believing) easily gamed bestseller lists or crowds.

Inability to tolerate fear and uncertainty.

Focus on now at the expense of the long term.

Allowing the clothes of the messenger (a uniform, a suit and tie, a hat) to influence your perception of the information he delivers (add gender, fame, age and race to this too).

Reliance on repetition and frequency to decide what's true.

Desire to stick with previously made decisions because cognitive dissonance is strong.

Inability to ignore sunk costs.

Problem saying 'no' in social situations.

Interesting to note that AM radio used to be filled with ads for second mortgages. And now? Gold.

Manipulating people using modern techniques is astonishingly easy (if the marketer has few morals). You only make it easier when you permit people and organizations that want to take advantage of you to do so by allowing them to use your good nature and your natural instincts against you.

It happens every day in Washington DC, online, on TV and in your local community institutions.

Infographic: Android's Uptick in the Giant Shadow of Dumbphones

By Tyler Gray - FastCompany

How fast is Google's mobile platform rising in popularity? And does it make a dent in the greater dumbphone world?

Print-style - graphics intensive, too much for here so..... please click this link and take a look! It's a very interesting article!

Biz discovers it's a cold, cruel twitterverse

By Peter Bart - Variety

To save you time, here's a summary of this column: Tweets are in, manners are out.

Let me elaborate for those readers with pre-Twitter patience: In Hollywood, the process of rejection is becoming colder and more abrupt. And rejection is what most communications are all about.

Talk to veterans of the scene, and the trend runs something like this: A few years ago if you wanted to cancel a deal or turn down a script or drop an actor from a series, the principals would be summoned to a meeting. It would be short but polite.

Sympathy meetings are a thing of the past. Phone calls took their place -- the voice was often empathetic, even encouraging.

Then came email. Rejection took less time this way. Skip the empathy.

Now a career can be changed with two words on Twitter: "It's over."

When that true cultural icon Paula Abdul decided to quit American Idol, she did so with a tweet. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez fires ministers with a Tweet. Social networking sites are becoming anti-social networking sites.

"Email may be rude, but it's a time-saver," one studio apparatchik acknowledged to me. "You don't have to pretend to be apologetic about saying 'no.'?"

The process is less popular on the receiving end. One director last week told me about his meeting with a star -- she was excited by the project and wanted the role. Then came the cold email: It's a pass.

So let's forget the meeting: Whatever happened to the gracious phone call? I was reminded of this the other day when I learned that the publication of the phone book may be a thing of the past.

Betty White remembers the phone book: Last week on Saturday Night Live, while acknowledging her vast support on Facebook, she recalled: "When I was growing up we didn't have Facebook. We had phone books, but you wouldn't waste an afternoon on them."

Still, the Facebook crowd got Betty her SNL gig, just like Justin Bieber's instant stardom came from his mom's decision to post his videos on YouTube. Thanks to the YouTubers and their tweets, the little kid from Stratford, Ontario sold 850,000 units of his "My World 2.0" album in five weeks and is causing teenage riots at his appearances. So much for needing "Star Search" or "Idol."

Box office grosses are presently being measured by taking the tweet temperature. Some 87% of Americans now know about Twitter, compared with 26% last year, but it still lags behind Facebook in use. Incredibly some 70% of users feel impelled to post status updates on Facebook, while Twitter functions more as a medium to dispense news -- or rejections.

Many nerds are now rebelling against Facebook, complaining that these "hubs" provide too much information to marketers. Rather than surrender this privacy, they say, individuals should set up their own private social networks and communicate directly with one another on non-Facebook hubs of nerddom.

At the root of all of this, of course, is the urgently personal need to be impersonal. Why meet someone for coffee to confide a decision, or an emotion, when you can do it with a phone call? Or send an email? Or dispatch a Tweet?

I went to Starbucks the other day and noted all the tables were full, but everyone was alone on their computers. Since it was the middle of Hollywood, I wondered how many of the coffee crowd were reading notes of rejection. And tweeting their Facebook friends about their state of depression.

As if they cared.

37 Ways that Independent Film is succeeding today

From Film Snobbery - May 16th - Click this link and scroll down for the subsequent pages of the article.... it's well worth reading! http://filmsnobbery.com/feature/37-ways-independent-film-is-succeeding-today/



On May 11th, 2010 film producer Ted Hope posted on this blog 38 More Ways The Film Industry Is Failing. This should be considered, amongst other things, to be a direct response to that article. I will not deny that there are many obstacles facing the indie community. But film history has shown time and again that indie film has hurdled those obstacles every time they’ve been faced with them.

1. Government incentives at the state level are allowing more productions to get financed and opening up the job market in the filmmaking industry. This also trickles down to the independent film community. Filmmakers are able to and do use these tax credits, and other incentives like free shooting permits, etc. to fund and sustain their productions.

2. Technology has given independent filmmakers unparalleled opportunities to break into the film industry. Many movies that are starting off as shorts posted on YouTube are being optioned as Hollywood films (for example last year’s “District 9″). For filmmakers who are going a different route, technology has enabled them to make their art cheaper, more efficiently, and their productions are scalable to almost any size budget. The new independent filmmaker is not a technophobe or luddite, they are embracing technology as an indispensable weapon in their arsenal of art.

3. Organized filmmaker events are everywhere. Contrary to some schools of thought, the independent filmmaking community does exist and is incredibly vibrant. From film festivals all over the world to more local fare like The Conversation and DIY Days, filmmakers are gathering everywhere to network, learn, and share their projects with the general public and their contemporaries. The filmmaker community is open and welcoming. It is expanding and growing every year. Festival submission data corroborates that. Artists seek out other artists. That is the nature of creativity. It yearns to be nurtured and is inherently social.

4. Just the act of being a filmmaker does not necessitate that the artist is, or has to be a businessperson. Some people create just to create. Even getting your film in front of an audience does not necessarily require you to have an MBA from Harvard. It can be as simple as setting up a screen or popping in a DVD at your local bar, church, or school. The art of SELLING a film is where the business part comes in. Yes films have budgets, and the big buzz word right now is sustainability. Filmmakers don’t really need money to create art. They are not sustaining their creativity, they are sustaining their lifestyle. Things cost money, art doesn’t. Yes the accouterments of filmmaking can cost a pretty penny, but I run into filmmakers ever week that have made films for under $1000. They might not be the most professional looking films ever made, but they ARE being made. The business aspect of filmmaking is the same as any day job anyone has ever had. Trading time for money to pay for the necessities in life. Food, shelter, and clothing (and in most filmmaker’s cases, coffee). Filmmakers can in fact sustain themselves, without compromise to their art, but perhaps compromise to their lifestyles. Indie filmmakers recognize this and make these sacrifices constantly to tell the story they want to tell. They re-mortgage their homes and beg, borrow, and steal to realize their visions.

5. Crowdfunding has given filmmakers a unique way to fund their projects. The best part about crowdfunding is that it solves the investor issue, and acts as a natural audience filter for projects that might not yet be ready to be made (either due to poor creative vision, lack of a compelling story, etc.). Once a project has been successfully crowdfunded, and provided that the filmmaker stays within that budget, that project has a net loss of $0.00. Anything made from day one is pure profit. This is something that the Hollywood part of the industry just cannot do. Their business model does not support this.

6. Independent filmmakers have always had to think outside the box for things like funding, production, and distribution. This has led to a myriad of new business opportunities for those that are bold enough to see this demand and supply the proper channels for indies to take advantage of. Businesses like IndieGoGo, Biracy, and Kickstarter have answered the call for crowdsourcing. OpenIndie, Distribber, and IndieFlix are options to consider when looking towards distribution. The bulk of these sites were started by other filmmakers that saw a need in their community for a particular service. No one else was taking care of their needs, so they decided to do it themselves.

7. Filmmakers are always looking to share the tips and tricks they’ve learned while battling it out in the trenches. People like Jon Reiss, Chris Jones, and Lloyd Kaufman all have books out (Chris and Lloyd have a series of books each!) that are aimed at helping filmmakers make, produce, and sell their own damn movies. Others like Lance Weiler have even found other means of monetizing their careers as public speakers, giving seminars, and addressing other filmmakers. This to me shows entrepreneurial spirit and shows that there are many filmmakers that think about the future of not only the film community, but also their own.

8. Organizations such as SAG have gone out of their way to create contracts that are specific to low budget independent film. They have recognized that either one of two things will happen. Either filmmakers will play ball and create SAG approved films, or they’re going to do it anyway whether SAG approves or not. Agencies have seen the power of the independent filmmaker over the years and have changed or added to their policies to accommodate them. This shows that filmmakers do in fact have the ability to affect change within the industry. Look what happened when it was outed that Sundance hadn’t shown a true low budget indie in a number of years. The filmmaking community made a huge deal of it and that very same year we were introduced to Sundance Next.

9. Independent film has changed the way we watch content. Way back in 1993 the film “Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees” became the first feature film to be streamed on the internet. This paved the way for future generations of filmmakers to put their content on the net and get it seen by a completely different audience than the traditional theatrical. While there were a lot of technical limitations of the time that prevented this movie to be fully appreciated online, other filmmakers embraced this new medium and has made it a home for the promotion of themselves and their content.

10. Independent film has led to film curators. People like Zak Forsman and Pericles Lewnes who created CineFist and the Annapolis Pretentious Film Society respectively as both a distribution platform for their films but also as a screening venue for others’ films. Other filmmakers and people in the indie film community have done this as well. David Branin and Karen Worden are the curators of Film Courage Interactive, and marketing expert and publicist Sheri Candler created her own as well. These combined with the film festival circuit provide filmmakers the opportunity to not only make an event out of their movies, but also a chance to have a limited theatrical distribution.

Porn on the Go: A Lucrative and Innovative Industry

By Igor Hiller - RCR Wireless.

The pornography industry is changing and it wants everyone to watch.

Watch its content, that is. Getting viewers to part with bills in return for visual thrills is a never-ending challenge for the industry, one that has become only more difficult with the proliferation of free content and a rapid increase in the amount of pornographic search engines like RedTube.com.

In an effort to stay relevant, cutting edge, and profitable, adult entertainment companies are increasingly turning to mobile, an industry expected to double to $4.9 billion in five years.

“Your phone is very personal,” says Lolly Popova, Executive Vice-President of Smart Mobile Services Inc., a boring-sounding name for a company which owns and operates several very interesting-sounding mobile pornography sites, including quickiclips.com, hotmobilecash.com, and pureiporn.com. “You may forget your wallet, but you can’t leave home without your cell phone.”

Quite true, which is why the mobile platform allows the industry to penetrate its market with greater frequency and accuracy.

Popova believes customers are hungry for bite-sized, high-quality morsels of porn, downloaded quickly and delivered straight to their mobile devices. Her companies emphasize personalization, she says, which allows them to compete with the free “tube” sites.

Examples abound. Her company operates the #1 mobile transvestite pornography site in the world, and she is preparing to launch femdombride.com, a site not recommended for soon-to-be-married men.

The emphasis on niche pornographic markets seems to be working. Popova says her sites initially charged between $1-2 for a five-minute clip, but she has begun raising prices with the intention of reaching $1 per minute. So far, she says she has not seen a dip in demand.

But mobile porn is innovating far beyond simple personalization. Customers can now pay to access live-streaming webcams on their phones. The industry is likewise looking into using location-based services (chat with local singles, perhaps?), and 3D on mobile is definitely on the horizon.

“We’re always ready to embrace new and experimental things,” says Popova.

Not everyone is, though, including the well-known buzz-kill Steve Jobs, who banned pornography apps from Apple’s online store (curiously leaving in Playboy’s app and Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit models, hm).

Not an industry content to just lie there and take it, however, mobile pornography will continue to find new revenue streams. An upcoming Smart Mobile Systems project will allow users to upload their own amateur content and receive a percentage of the profits for every download.
Now there’s a move sure to leave everyone satisfied.

Rogue satellite could kill cable programming

By Don Reisinger - CNET Blog Network

According to the news service, a satellite known as Galaxy 15 broke contact with its owner, Intelsat on April 5. Although the exact cause is unknown, the satellite's owners believe it could have been "knocked out by a solar storm."

Normally, losing contact with a satellite wouldn't be cause for much concern, since in most cases, satellites stop transmitting signals. But Intelsat has confirmed that Galaxy 15 is still transmitting signals to Earth and it's slowly but surely entering the orbit of AMC 11, a satellite owned by SES World Skies, that handles U.S. cable programming.

Intelsat isn't concerned that the two satellites will collide, but rather that Galaxy 15 could send signals that would interfere with AMC 11's signals. The interference is expected to occur on or around May 23, according to the AP.

Between now and then, Intelsat is working diligently to regain control over Galaxy 15 and keep it away from AMC 11. An Intelsat representative told the news service that the company is "confident that service disruptions will be minimized or avoided."

The risks of not succeeding are high. According to the AP, "AMC 11 receives digital programming from cable television channels and transmits it to all U.S. cable systems."

Comcast, which has more than 23 million cable subscribers, did not immediately respond to request for comment on whether or not its service will be disrupted in the event of an interference issue.

Europe Strives to Catch Up With Digital Hollywood

By ERIC PFANNER - New York Times

PARIS — As film critics hunker down in Cannes for the next week and a half to assess the state of cinematic art, millions of people across Europe will buy tickets to Hollywood blockbusters like “Iron Man 2” and “How to Train Your Dragon.”

Europeans flocking to the cinema are contributing to a global boom in box-office receipts and generating a rare bit of good news for the troubled media industry. But American movie studios are enjoying most of the benefit.

The American export boom is being fueled by movies with three-dimensional effects, including “How to Train Your Dragon” and “Avatar,” the biggest-grossing film of all time. European moviemakers were initially skeptical about the technology, reckoning that the novelty would wear off — and, perhaps, that Gérard Depardieu in two dimensions was already more than enough.

“European producers have been a lot slower to grasp the initiative,” said Charlotte Jones, analyst at Screen Digest, a research firm in London.

As a result, locally produced films lost ground at the European box office last year, falling to 26.7 percent of ticket sales from 28.2 percent in 2008, according to the European Audiovisual Observatory in Strasbourg. Analysts say the European films’ share has deteriorated further this year, especially in France, the biggest movie producer in Europe and usually a redoubt of strength for domestic productions.

The setback followed a good run for European filmmakers, during which they produced movies with ever broader audience appeal. France led the way, with films like “Amélie” in 2001, and European success continued through 2008 with “Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis,” also from France, and “Slumdog Millionaire,” from Britain.

The recent reversal of fortunes is reviving worries about the commercial dominance of Hollywood among European film producers and cultural authorities.

“Given the number of American films in 3-D that have appeared, it is very important that French production gets going,” said Stéphanie Gavardin, a spokeswoman for the Centre National du Cinéma in France.

The agency, which coordinates public financing for the French movie business, has approved subsidies totaling €1.3 million, or $1.7 million, to about 20 3-D film projects, she said. None of these films has reached theaters yet, but a number are expected to do so next year.

Elsewhere in Europe, 3-D films are starting to emerge. In what is being billed as the first release of a European-made live action 3-D film, “StreetDance 3D,” a British movie featuring dance troupes that made their names via television talent contests, is set to appear in cinemas this month.

Perhaps the highest-profile European 3-D project is a French-German coproduction, “Resident Evil: Afterlife.” The film, based on a video game series and starring Milla Jovovich, is set for release in September.

Even with public subsidies, a fixture of filmmaking across Europe, the high cost of making 3-D movies remains a problem for European producers, which operate on budgets that are only a small fraction of a typical Hollywood outlay. Shooting live action in 3-D generally costs about 25 percent to 30 percent more than conventional filming, analysts say, though the premium may be even higher for low-budget productions.

Some people in the movie industry argue that it makes little sense for European producers to compete with Hollywood in the production of technology-driven, blockbuster-style films.

“We can’t,” said Vincent Grimond, chief executive of Wild Bunch, a film distributor based in Paris. “There is only one worldwide movie industry, and that is Hollywood. The only thing we can do is be lucky and come out with a ‘Slumdog’ from time to time.”

European cinema owners, however, are eager to see more 3-D movies on their screens. Not only do these films draw in viewers eager for something new, but they enable theaters to charge a premium. So they are investing heavily in the special digital screens needed to show 3-D effects.

According to the audiovisual observatory, the number of digital screens in Europe tripled last year, to more than 4,600. That is about 13 percent of overall movie screens in the region.

French cinema owners have been leading the way. As “Avatar” was raking it in at the box office this winter, French theater operators like MK2, UGC and Gaumont Pathé accelerated plans to digitize their networks of screens across France and other European countries.

Several countries, including France, Germany and Italy, have announced plans to use public funds to subsidize the installation of digital screens in smaller cinemas, whose owners say they cannot afford the investment and fear that they will otherwise be stuck showing two-dimensional art house films to dwindling audiences.

While some European producers fear that digitization will hasten a shift in audience tastes, away from the kinds of films that Europe does best, the situation may not be as dire as the market share numbers suggest.

While U.S. blockbusters made big gains at the European box office last year, European films also managed to eke out small increases, despite a falling market share, because more people went to the movies. Overall box-office receipts rose 12 percent in the 27 European Union countries last year, according to the audiovisual observatory, with ticket sales up 6 percent.

“I’m not sure the popularity of ‘Avatar’ means there is any less interest in European film,” said Renate Rose, managing director of European Film Promotion, an organization based in Hamburg that works to raise the profile of European movies in international markets.

Sponsored Conversations Grow Social Revenue

by John Gaffney - Digidaydaily

Social media measurement continues to be separated into paid and earned categories. Following on the heels of Meteor Solutions launch of its influence map on Monday, a new research study says that social media sponsorships have bounced 13.9%.

PQ Media, which bills itself as an alternative media econometrics firm, says the category accounted for $46 million over the past year. PQ claims to be the first to define the category by size and structure. That definition: Social media sponsorships are a “digital word-of-mouth marketing segment in which brands provide material compensation, such as cash, products, points or trips, to social media content creators to promote and/or review their products and services through long-form text or status updates, often with accompanying visuals.” PQ Media gathered input from dozens of key industry opinion leaders – executives, consultants and analysts – at leading operators, agencies, financial companies and trade associations to define, size and structure the social media sponsorships landscape.

The report divided social media sponsorships into two major segments, which include a total of four categories. The first segment is cash-sponsored social media, which accounted for 22.4% of total spending in 2009, or $10.3 million. While social media sponsorships accounted for less than 3% of overall word-of-mouth marketing spending in 2009, this share is expected to continue growing over the next several years, fueled by the controversial sponsored conversations segment.The cash-sponsored segment is driving overall social media sponsorship growth. Non-paid sponsored social media, in which the social media publisher is provided samples of the product or coupons, includes three categories – digital brand ambassador programs, digital seed/viral campaigns and digital marketing agencies. The value of the non-paid sponsored segment reached $35.7 million in 2009, representing an 8.5% gain over 2008.

Key findings include:

The value of paid and non-paid social media sponsorships grew at a compound annual rate of 77.6% from 2004 to 2009, accounting for 2.7% of total word-of-mouth marketing spending in 2009, up from only 0.5% in 2004.
The total value of social media sponsorships will increase 23.6% in 2010 to $56.8 million, driven by a stronger advertising and marketing environment as the economy improves, as well as continued pressure on brands to increase their presence in social media.
Cash-sponsored social media, available through sponsored conversation firms, is the fastest-growing social media sponsorship segment, with spending rising 37.3% in 2009 to $10.3 million, driven by brand requirements to reach specific “influentials” such as young females and working mothers.
“We believe this sector will be among the fastest-growing alternative media in the near future because of the growth of social media, driven by popular mobile and online applications and devices, as well as the FTC’s transparency guidelines, which require social media content creators to disclose when they receive compensation in exchange for editorial coverage,” said Patrick Quinn, CEO of PQ Media.

Quinn says the FTC guidelines have served to bolster the category’s growth over the past year, despite what some industry observers thought would happen – that growth would be hampered. The largest brand categories by spending in 2009 were CPG, food & beverage, health & beauty, and media & entertainment. PQ’s report says sponsored conversations tend to help brands create even more buzz than usual because by paying social media content generators, a brand is assured of receiving editorial coverage on a targeted blog, online video, podcast or other social network.

Facebook’s Darth Vader Grip On Game Publishers

By Michael Arrington on May 11, 2010
Imagine a 400 pound bully strangling another kid while simultaneously rummaging through his pockets for lunch money. And he’s speaking quite calmly the whole time about what great friends they still are. Or else.

That’s what the relationship between Facebook and the major game publishers feels like right now, they’re telling me. Until a little over a month ago everything was quite cozy between Facebook and those publishers. Games like FarmVille and scores of others were growing hand over fist, adding hundreds of thousands of new users daily via viral features like Facebook notifications. Those publishers could monetize those users any way they like (which they did). And lost of that money made its way back to Facebook in advertising buys.

Then things changed. Perhaps the image of Darth Vader choking the cute and lovable Elmo best describes the situation from the publishers’ point of view.

Last Fall Facebook put the hammer down, and let publishers know that the viral spread of games via notifications was going away. Those changes went into effect in March. That was 40% or more of new user referrals, we’ve heard anecdotally.

Facebook users certainly rejoiced at the lessening of application spam. And while Facebook may have thought they were simply pruning the hedges to keep things under control, they may have cut way too deep. Since notifications have turned off, the big games have lost an average of 10% of their total monthly users, and there is no sign of that leveling off.

We reviewed the average monthly user data on the top ten Facebook social games from allfacebook and AppData. These stats were collected last night, and they are already out of date – Farmville has lost more than 1 million users since then, bringing their total down to 76.4 million. In the last month alone, nearly 30 million users, unduplicated, have bailed from these top ten games. That’s about 10% of the total:



That’s the strangling part. The shakedown part is Facebook Credits, where Facebook takes 30% of the total payments as a tax. They have begun applying pressure on game publishers to accept Facebook Credits as the only payment method. Publishers are “outraged and disgusted” by Facebook Credits, says an exec at one large publisher, but they can’t complain publicly because Facebook has so many subtle ways of hurting them. The fact that Facebook seems unwilling to accept PayPal as a payment option adds further frustration – publishers think total payments will go way down even before Facebook takes their cut.

All of this is just a backdrop to Facebook’s ongoing negotiations with publishers over long term agreements that tie them to the Facebook platform. Given the changing landscape and the inability of publishers to know what might hit them next, it’s no surprise that Zynga will launch an independent platform where they can make their own rules. Others may soon

Digidaydaily - Foodies Online

Digital consumers are hungry for food content. That’s the conclusion drawn from Deloitte’s new 2010 Consumer Food Safety Survey. The survey found that one-third (33%) of respondents subscribed to receive emails, recipes, or coupons directly from food manufacturers, a six %age point increase from the 2008 survey.

Almost a quarter (23%) of respondents said they have visited a food company's web site to find product information and 23% also made a food purchase as a result of something they read online. In line with the 2008 results, 36% of consumers said they have visited a food company's Web site to get recipes, compared with 35% in 2008.

Mobile devices are starting to make an impact in the food business as well, especially when it comes to price. Seven % survey respondents have used their mobile phone while in a store for a variety of reasons including to: compare prices (53%), redeem coupons (44%) and obtain nutritional information (28%).

When it comes to bargain hunting, men are more aggressive and, according to survey respondents, use their mobile devices more than women, to compare prices (59 % to 49%) and obtain/redeem coupons/discounts (53% to 38%). Women are more focused on using their mobile devices for receiving further nutritional information (36 % to 18%).

Store brands remain a preference over name brands with 52% of Americans surveyed frequently or always purchasing store brands when shopping for packaged or bottled food items.

Among respondents who purchase store brands, three-quarters (75%) currently purchase these brands because they are less expensive than national brand food products. More than half (55%) surveyed currently purchase store brands because the quality is believed to be comparable to national brand food products, an increase of 14% age points since 2008, while 6% say the quality is better (taste, ingredients, organic, etc.) than national brand food products.

The box office strikes back

The worldwide cinema boom

Once incidental to Hollywood’s fortunes, cinema is now the fastest-growing and most innovative part of the film business

From The Economist print edition



SUMMER begins on May 7th, at least according to Hollywood’s calendar. On that day “Iron Man 2” is due to be released in American and Asian cinemas (it appeared a week earlier in Europe, to take advantage of the May Day holiday). Like many modern blockbusters, the film trades on nostalgia. It is based on a comic-book series that began in the 1960s and even features a Russian baddie. This is appropriate, given the state of the film business. Technological progress and changes in tastes mean that Hollywood depends more and more on the old-fashioned practice of showing films in cinemas.

Film exhibition was until recently a humdrum business. The formula for success was simple: sell lots of tickets at the same price, then funnel punters past salty popcorn and fizzy drinks. Cinemas keep about half the price of a ticket and up to 90% of the money spent at concession stands. For film-makers, showing movies in cinemas was important not so much in its own right but as a means of drawing attention to a product, the most profitable incarnations of which would appear later. The real money was in home entertainment, especially sales of DVDs.

But now the pendulum is swinging back towards the box office. In 2009 global box-office revenues increased by 7.6%, but total revenue for the biggest Hollywood studios fell by 4.3%, “due to the collapse of consumer spending on DVDs”, according to Bernstein, a research firm.

Since 2005 North American box-office receipts have risen by 20% (see chart). Ticket sales grew strongly during the recession, as people sought a cheapish night out, and have not slowed. Box Office Mojo, which tracks films, estimates that box-office receipts this year are running at 6% above last year’s level. Elsewhere cinema is healthier still. Ticket sales outside America and Canada have risen by 35% since 2005 and are now worth about two-thirds of the global total. A boom in multiplexes—that is, cinemas with at least eight screens—is unlocking latent demand. In 2006 Russians made a total of 89.5m visits to the cinema. Last year they made 132.3m. This is especially surprising in a country where the number of young people is falling.

Meanwhile revenues from DVDs, Blu-ray discs and digital copies of films together have fallen by 8% in America since 2005, according to the Digital Entertainment Group. That figure, which includes rentals and sales of such things as exercise videos, flatters Hollywood. Stephen Prough of Salem Partners, an investment bank, says DVD sales of new films fell by 17% between 2008 and 2009 alone. The main culprit, he says, is the emergence of cheap, convenient rental services such as Netflix and Redbox. Although the drop has been less steep elsewhere, people in other countries never bought many DVDs.

What is driving the cinema boom? The most obvious answer, for consumers, is the rise of three-dimensional films. Audiences have flocked to films like “Avatar”, a vaguely ecological fantasy, and “Alice in Wonderland”. In North America 3-D films drove almost all the growth in box-office receipts last year. Although the premium that cinemas charge for 3-D films has risen steeply from as little as $1 per ticket to $3 or more, consumers have not balked. “We still don’t know how much they are willing to pay,” says David Passman, chief executive of Carmike, a cinema chain.

More important, though less visible, is the digitisation of cinema. The number of screens served by digital projectors worldwide rose from about 3,000 to 16,400 between 2006 and 2009, according to Screen Digest, a research firm. That primed the explosion in 3-D films: it is hard, though not impossible, to project a 3-D image using old-fashioned film. Digitisation has made it easier for multiplex owners to shuffle films around screens to cope with surges in demand. And satellite distribution is making it easier and cheaper for films to open simultaneously around the world.

Digitisation is a particular boon to IMAX, a Canadian firm that makes bigger, taller screens. Once associated with films of fish in natural-history museums, IMAX now offers its products to multiplexes (the first few rows of seats are sometimes removed to accommodate the bigger screens). For the past 18 months it has been converting two to three screens a week. This would have been almost impossible without digitisation. Its larger film size means it costs about $25,000 to make a single print of an IMAX film. The need to recoup such costs necessitated long film runs. Now that IMAX films can be delivered digitally for a few hundred dollars, they can be programmed more like ordinary films. Cinemas tend to charge 30-40% above the ordinary ticket price.
Name your price

Cinema-owners have long suspected that, by charging the same amount to see a $2m independent film and a $200m blockbuster, they were leaving money on the table. The response to 3-D films and IMAX proves that they were. Cinema is evolving from a commodity into a business that sells differentiated products at varied prices. The example of India suggests that there is room for further differentiation.

Multiplexes are rising in many Indian cities: Mumbai alone has added more than 75 screens in the past five years, says Anil Arjun, chief executive of Reliance MediaWorks. They appeal to, and are priced for, India’s aspirant middle class. Fame, a cinema chain, charges an average of 141 rupees ($3.15) per ticket, in a country where daily income per person is just 120 rupees. Some cinemas have replaced rows of seats with widely spaced reclining chairs, with tray tables and waiter service. This model appears to be spreading to the West. Carmike has opened a cinema in Tennessee that serves alcohol and food, to great success. The draw seems to be not just comfortable seats, but the absence of teenagers.

Film-makers are adapting to these changes. India’s new cinemas have given rise to “multiplex films”, focused on the concerns of affluent youngsters and with somewhat less singing and dancing than in standard Bollywood fare. Elsewhere the rise of 3-D and the super-sizing of screens are leading studios to focus on visual spectaculars. “French table dramas do not look much better on IMAX,” notes Julian Stanford, who manages that company’s business in Europe and Africa. The growth of screens outside America also favours big action films: an explosion is an explosion, regardless of language.

The loser, as so often, is grown-up drama. In the past two years the big studios have shut or run down “specialty” divisions like Focus Features and Miramax (the latter may yet return, in a much depleted state, to Bob and Harvey Weinstein, who founded it). Fans of such films are out of luck. They should certainly steer clear of cinemas this summer.

A new era of filmmaking

By: Filmindustrynetwork


CANNES, France – As the industry prepares for the world’s largest film festival, a shift in technology has given the power to independent filmmakers on a global scale.

Independent short filmmakers, documentary and feature directors now have the tools to create huge fan bases for their projects before they are even made using social networks and building high quality websites with tools available on the web.

The Hollywood studio system that has dominated for so long will have to adapt, and studios are shifting toward 3D blockbusters to reinvent the way they approach the market. With high budget movies, massive marketing budgets and unbeatable reach, major motion pictures have always had an advantage until today.

Now it is inexpensive for independents to market their films and gather support for unknown movies using the web. This dynamic shift is still in its early days, but there is a growing realization that the internet is fast becoming the answer to getting a film distributed, and there is a huge audience hungry to watch indie films.

Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity are two non-star movies that have become international successes on the back end of using traditional, but more importantly, internet marketing to push these two projects. While studios and powerful agencies representing big actors will not want to admit the shift, it is clear that independent films can be more lucrative than blockbuster movies.

So how does an independent film go mainstream? The answer is: People power and distribution. Distributors have a vital role in how films get seen and are keen to have the elements that make a film a successful sell. But with low budget indie films making massive profits, does a star vehicle have the same appeal? As the internet provides unprecedented accessibility to reach millions of people, surely the college student and his/her friends have the same opportunity as the marketing department of a large studio?

Here is another interesting fact. It took one video on youtube for a special effects genius to make his mark internationally (Ataque de Pánico!) . It was a viral hit reaching millions of people in days. Compare that to marketing a trailer with an advertising budget of several million, and you can quickly see why paying for posters on subways, billboards, TV ads and more is no longer cost-effective.

Time will tell how the independent film industry comes together, but the days of major motion pictures dominating our cinema screens are coming to an end.

Social Media Revolution 2 - Video

The Growth of Social Media By Erik Qualman:

Via Dean Guadagni - deansguide

“The Growth of Social Media” by Erik Qualman is the latest in his über compelling series of videos on the growth and proliferation of social media throughout the world. Qualman delivers again, with an eerie Fatboy Slim track accompanying, an almost mystical quality that brings viewers to one conclusion: Everything we know is changing at light speed. Enjoy!

RWW Mobile Summit Keynote: Top Mobile Trends of 2010

Written by Frederic Lardinois /

During his keynote presentation at the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit today, our founder and editor Richard MacManus examined the trends and issues around mobile that we have been tracking here on RWW. Among the topics covered in today's keynote were geo-location, mobile commerce, cloud computing, privacy, and the Internet of Things. MacManus' discussion also touched upon the advantages and disadvantages of mobile websites and native apps.

Browser-Based vs. Native Apps

Looking at the market for mobile phones, it becomes clear that touch screen-enabled devices are now becoming the norm. According to the latest data from Taptu, there are currently over 326,000 mobile sites on the Web that have been optimized for touch. In addition, there are over 185,000 iPhone apps in Apple App Store and 27,000 Android apps in the Android Market, most of which are connected to the Internet. As mobile browsers have become more capable, though, it is clear that developers can also create very compelling mobile applications in the browser. One of the examples MacManus brought up during the keynote is the HTML5 location-based social network Burbn. As MacManus also noted, even though we tend to talk about native apps a lot, mobile touch websites will be a major trend in the near future, especially for e-commerce sites.

Looking at an older RWW story by Alex Iskold from 2008 about 12 potential apps for the iPhone, MacManus noted that we now have access to 8 out of these 12 apps that - not too long ago - still sounded futuristic. As an example for these apps that have now become reality, MacManus highlighted Recognizr - an augmented reality app that recognizes faces and displays people's social media streams next to their faces.

Location, Sensors and the Internet of Things

Another mobile trend for 2010 is also clearly geo-location and location as a platform. While current use cases like apps that show you nearby restaurants, mobile ads, and local news and events are already very compelling, MacManus also noted that being able to combine location data with sensor data could easily spark another round of exciting innovations for mobile apps.

Already, as Richard stressed, there are over 430 million phones with accelerometers, compasses, gyroscopes and pressure sensors in use today. Some analysts predict that this number will rise to over 2.2 billion by 2014.

The Internet of Things, too, is another trend we are tracking closely here at RWW. Using your phone as a barcode reader or as an RFID tag is already becoming quite common in some countries, though in the future, MacManus expects that we will also see wider use of the sensors we already have in our phones.

Emerging Standards

Among the trends around mobile development that we are currently tracking, MacManus noted the emerging wireless standards like DASH7, NFC, ZigBee and - of course - WiMax and 4G. Mobile sensors, especially, are one of the topics that we are very excited about here at RWW.

Augmented Reality

MacManus also talked about augmented reality, which has really come to the forefront over the last few months. Over 150 of the world's largest companies (by revenue) like Toyota, Boeing, General Motors and Microsoft have already employed AR in their products and marketing campaigns. In total, more than 1,000 AR campaigns were kicked-off in 2009. Some of the examples for augmented reality apps noted in MacManus' keynote were Wikitude and Junaio iPhone app that taps into the BART API and displays data about local transit conditions in the Bay area.

Wine Brands Go Mobile, Social

From Brandchannel.com - May 6th, 2010

The last two years were hardly vintage years for wine-makers. Strapped consumers have not stopped drinking wine, but they've sopped up more of the cheap stuff, so it has been tough going for pricey wine brands.

That's why Constellation Brands, the largest producer of wine in the world, is trying some breakthrough techniques to promote such wine brands as Estancia, Ravenswood and Robert Mondavi. Not surprisingly, those techniques include a considerable investment in digital media and interactivity.

One initiative, targeting under-35 consumers, is a first for wine brands.

Constellation is testing a mobile application, available for the iPhone and BlackBerry, that allows consumers to scan bar codes on bottles of wine. In return, they'll receive additional details about the wines, some of which will be delivered as video, such as tips on wine/food pairings.

Then there's the You Got Boxed video contest running on behalf of the company's Black Box Wines brand. (Wine in a box, by the way, just got Vanity Fair's seal of approval.)

In a nod to social media-savvy wine-lovers, Black Box fans are encouraged to "share our award-winning wines with your friends and capture their reaction on video." Then friends can vote on the video. Winning entries get cash prizes.

In another unique digital undertaking, Constellation partnered with American Express for Pairings, a series of exclusive private events for AmEx cardmembers in Napa Valley, California and New York.

At a November event held at the Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa, New Orleans chef John Besh created a gourmet meal, winemaker Genevieve Janssens paired the food with appropriate wines, and performer Dave Matthews played acoustically.

On the Pairings website, excerpts from the evening, as well as additional video commentary by all three celebrities, are available for all to view.

Constellation, which spent about $80 million on advertising last year, is expected to increase that amount in 2010 with more dollars dedicated to digital media.

Meanwhile, Twitter guru (and Crush It! author) Gary Vaynerchuk's Wine Library TV was just named the virtual sommelier for Virgin Airlines.

Vaynerchuk, who you can watch below paying tribute to wine legend Mondavi, will produce videos of suggested pairings to go with Virgin's menu and host a first-of-its-kind in-flight wine tasting on Virgin America this summer.

More wine brands online and in the air? Well, we'll drink to that.