If you know me well, you know that I passionately advocate for a more genial relationship between Hollywood & Silicon Valley. You also might know that I believe that the future of the ‘www’ lies in third-party APIs. These APIs could likewise play a starring role in the future of the film & television biz. From Mashery, one of the leading API development shops — changing the digital media landscape, one snippet of code at a time:

Mike Hart, Director of Engineering and Social Systems, presents the evolution of the Netflix API Strategy - from using their API to seed innovation, to scaling their API program to get Netflix onto over 200 different devices to continuing innovation through a program of rapid iteration. Mike walks through the highs and lows of the Netflix API program over a multi-year history. Hear for yourself how Netflix has used their API to continue to stay well ahead of competitors in their market space.

Key Points
- Evolution of API Strategy.
- Fostering 3rd party innovation.
- Expanding reach across multiple platforms and devices. (over 200).
- Continuous improvement using APIs for rapid iterations of testing and redesign.

Read more at Mashery’s Netflix Case Study page.

Social. Mobile. Video. CRM. APIs. Experiential.

No one word better defines 2011 for brands and marketers than convergence. Technologies and consumer behaviors have encouraged the fusion of content, channels and interactivity – allowing for the execution of more integrated immersive brand experiences.

I’ve spent the past few years producing work (at Tocquigny, Fox, and SocialVibe) that fuses interaction and storytelling mediums, but I believe that one recent project truly defines convergence.

“At The Moment” was an interactive video installation unveiled during the 2010 Teradata PARTNERS Conference at the San Diego Convention Center. Featuring 52 LED monitors and three 77” LCD panels, it exemplified the concept of “The Socialization of Data” and used a dynamic visualization of non-traditional data to help attendees follow the action at the conference. Mobile phone signals were used to track attendees’ whereabouts and dwell times at various locations. Heat maps of attendees’ locations showed exactly where the action was at any time. The wall also showed real-time data from 25 unique multi-form sources, including YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, stock market indices, polling results and crowdsourced points of interest, such as the geographic representations of registrants’ home cities. Attendees could also interact with the wall by utilizing the custom PARTNERSmobile app on their smartphones.

You can experience the convergence without a plane ticket by visiting the virtual At The Moment installation here.

Yogi Bear Parody: “Boo-Boo Kills Yogi” Ending

I rarely post this type of content to my blog, but this was incredible. The animation matches the upcoming YOGI BEAR feature film to the detail… and to think I could be emotionally stirred by my favorite childhood fictional character — wow.

An excerpt from a WSJ interview with the filmmaker, Edmund Earle:

Earle decided to re-fashion a new ending to “Yogi Bear” by casting the titular hero and his sidekick Boo-Boo as the leads in his take on “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” a drama written and directed by Andrew Dominik and starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck … “I have no affiliation with the actual creators of the film ‘Yogi Bear’,” says Earle, who says he’s been working on the video since Sept. from the hours of midnight and 3 a.m. daily.

Someone get this guy a film deal.

NEW YORK — Entertainment and technology companies are exploring new online services that would offer film and TV content to rival Netflix’s streaming service, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

The moves come amid concern that Netflix could end up dominating electronic distribution of Hollywood content in a way similar to how Apple’s iTunes dominates music.

Among others, Amazon.com is developing a Netflix-type subscription service for TV shows and movies, according to the Journal. It would be offered in a bundle with the Amazon Prime shipping service, which costs $79 a year.

OnLive, a startup that offers video games over the Web, in which Warner Bros. is an investor, plans to offer movies via subscriptions and other offers.

Microsoft and Sony Corp. have also talked to media giants about licensing services TV shows for subscription offers through their video game consoles.

TV maker Vizio has also expressed an interest in getting content for a video subscription service.

“I think ‘concerned’ is a gross understatement,” OnLive CEO Steve Perlman told the Journal about the feelings of entertainment companies towards Netflix’s rising online distribution power. “There’s a snowball effect. At some point they have so much content, if you want to get your stuff distributed you have to go with them.”

The Journal highlighted that competition for content will help bid up its value. “We’re always in favor of a vibrant, competitive ecosystem,” Zander Lurie, senior vp of strategic development at CBS Corp. told the Journal.

[photo via GeekyGadgets]

It was a great year for music. While this time last year I could only muster up a Top 10 list, it was nearly impossible to fit my twenty-ought-ten aural fixations onto a list as slim.

Without further ado, my Top 25 Records of the Year 2010:

Books, books, books. Finally the market and the key players have matured enough to develop a whole new ecosystem around printed media.

As predicted, Google will be at the forefront. Google Editions, the conglomerate’s foray into e-book sales, is set to launch by year’s end — and could overtake Amazon’s Kindle Market for the following reasons:

• not hardware specific (browser, mobile device, tablet — they’ll all work)
• millions of FREE books
• appealing to the “long tail” of book publishers and consumers (like the iTunes platform, independent authors now have a mainstream commercial outlet)

Like most entertainment distribution ventures, acquiring the “majors” (in this case, the big book publishers) is key to the success of the platform. Google likely had no trouble securing these deals — as stodgy as the publishing business is. The big question still up in the air is what will bridge the gap between digital and brick & mortar commerce? Will Barnes & Noble survive? Will indie authors take a significant piece of the market similar to the music biz circa 2003?

For me, this signals the impending fusion of transmedia entertainment. Immersive cross-platform storytelling has never been more fluid. Books, television, film, music, magazines, theater, sports, and live attractions are inching closer towards the fusion of a story across a multitude of distribution and consumption platforms.

Convergence. A truly exciting time to be involved in entertainment.

- - - - - - - -

Update (12/6): Google launched the platform today and in the processed renamed it to “Google ebookstore”. Looks like Mashable even gave it a thumbs up. Going to test out on my devices tonight.

First-run movies playing in your home theater on the day of theatrical release? Could be a reality — if you care to fork up $4,000/mo. The Wrap reports on the Bel-Air Movie Circuit, a highfalutin society of Los Angeles billionaires who’d rather watch movies in the comfort of their own homes than the plethora of luxury cinemas in Southern California.

The studios see it is a viable source of recurring revenue — dubbing the service “Premium Video On Demand”. I don’t know how I feel about it. Interesting nonetheless.

Read more about this exclusive home theater club here.

point reyes

december 2007

INFLUENCERS: HOW TRENDS AND CREATIVITY BECOME CONTAGIOUS  |  R-I Creative

Marketing is pretty simple. The key is to segment the decision makers and the influencers & appeal to each with a finely-tuned mix of pathos, ethos and logos.

The difficulty: identifying the catalysts of influence for each audience. We’re getting closer day-by-day, but we have a long way to go. 

This short documentary goes in a unique direction, replacing ‘influencers’ with ‘trend-setters’ — and proves that this alteration is more than about semantics. I appreciate the new approach to the idea as trends (social, political, technological, consumption) all define what people buy and what they don’t. And isn’t that what sales & marketing is about?

Visualization of the cultural differences between the two metropolises. Storytelling through simple design.

A few selected entries:

Working on a client project in beautiful San Diego for a week. Couldn’t be a better time to be back in Southern California. 

(More info about this ‘project’ will be shared in the near future)

Interesting read. I’ve been fascinated by this subject for a few years now. As the major movie studios continue folding their traditional marketing, licensing, and home entertainment units into their young digital counterparts, it becomes apparent that the entertainment biz is inching closer to Silicon Valley. Ashton Kutcher’s Katalyst, Ben Silverman’s Electus and Michael Eisner’s Vuguru have all inked significant production, distribution and monetization deals with web and mobile outlets. (Also see newly curated ventures hud:son Media and MTV Scratch, both of which I have high hopes for.)

In fact, all of these companies have taken on the “transmedia” brand stamp (as have I) in efforts to differentiate from the rest of the business, and to open up the possibilities for cross-platform distribution. Transmedia, I would argue, defines the possibilities of this SF/LA, digital/traditional relationship. Unfortunately, the entertainment business is in such a reactive state that pioneers like Eisner, Kutcher and Silverman must break off from the conglomerates in order to impart change. That being said, keep your eyes open for Fox, Disney, Paramount, WB, Sony, Universal, and the other players as they develop notable relationships with major web companies throughout 2011.

Finally, in the above article, Sarah Lacy infers that four groups currently at the helm of the Silicon Valley ecosystem could define the future of the entertainment landscape:

1. Media
2. Engineers/Executives
3. Investors
4. Entrepreneurs

I couldn’t agree more. Engineers drive the digital biz. Hire the best and brightest solutions architects — not just writers and producers. While many would argue that there is an ocean of investors in TV/film biz, I would push for the entrance of ‘angel investors’ into the space. Angels help incubate big ideas. Entrepreneurs, however, stick out as the key role that the entertainment biz is missing (and the web biz has too many of!). Inject a bit of money, some Ivy League smarts and a drive for innovation and the industry will be stronger than ever.

Isn’t it about time that the players in the advertising, digital and entertainment spaces start playing on the same team?

Oogling Over Google

Attempted by many a manufacturer but yet to be done right… until now?!? GoogleTV: bridging the gap between the web, 3rd party apps, DVR and cable/satellite TV. The web on TV? So what. DVR? Cable TV? Nothing new. The fusion of the four, however, is what could change living rooms across the world.

Three things GoogleTV is doing right:

1. Open Source (invite the developer community onboard and they will define the product’s success)
2. OS-based (not hardware-based like this and this)
3. Ubiquity (if anyone could grow to be the de facto TV software platform, it’s Google)

I’m already oozing with app and entertainment distribution/monetization ideas.

Perhaps the finest (and most undervalued) sports metaphor for business I have come across.

Match Sprint: 6 strategic minutes resolving in 30 physical, success-defining seconds — proving that it takes a fine balance of ingenuity and dexterity to surpass the competition.