Mark Kolier’s Blog

Archive for the ‘Entertainment’ Category

Who’s got more time for social networking? Already I find myself spending less and less time on Facebook. It may seem like I am on FB all the time to some people but I leave the tab open on my computer and take a quick look a few times a day. Still that only has me actively on FB maybe 15 minutes a day. I (like everyone else) get FB updates right on my mobile device and like everyone I can post photos, updates and whatever else I can think of on my mobile FB app. I have a Google+ account but spend even less time on Google + than I do using Facebook.

I spend more time on Linkedin than I do on Facebook since I am working more than I do anything else. Myspace.com is on life-support but as I posted over a year ago http://wp.me/pJX7l-k3 I still doubt Myspace will make it. No news flash there.

For a long time I felt that social networking would be dominated by Facebook and Linkedin, and maybe, just maybe, Google would find a way to get in the game. Twitter is considered to be part of social networking but life streams in 140 characters are not the same.

Recently emerging is Pinterest.com – a site that’s been around for several years and has gained a passionate and dedicated following – both in the personal and professional world. Entrepreneur magazine’s Jason Falls had an interesting piece on ‘How Pinterest is Becoming the Next Big Thing in Social Media for Business’ – http://bit.ly/zkll1c. A revenue model is still being sought (Foursquare is still working on one as well) but the growth of Pinterest has been impressive.

This weekend I read in the New York Times an article on a new ‘sort-of’ social network called Cowbird.com http://nyti.ms/wN5XDk – The article noted – ‘In less than three months, people from around the world have used Cowbird to create more than 7,600 mostly personal stories about people or moments in their lives, using words, pictures and sounds. All pieces are accompanied with a single photograph and some include audio. Some include a few words of text, others more.’

An article on Forbes.com from Kirsten Bischoff the –co-founder of HATCHEDit.com http://onforb.es/yqAumj highlighted the challenges in creating a new social network, and the benefits of smaller social networks. She writes about another small social networking site called Path.com – both of them look interesting and in fact pretty cool.

The problem for me is if I were to get even more into niche social networks – and the sharing networks are interesting to me although there are times when I prefer not to share, (goes back to an old sandbox problem) and I’d most assuredly get even less work done and have less time to actually do things.

This sharing thing easily turns into over-sharing don’t you think? Are you spending more or less time on social networks these days? Got any cool new ones you’d like to share?

Today (Valentine’s Day 2012) a company called Aereo announced (Barry Diller of IAC did the announcing) in the NY Times Media Decoder blog from Brian Stelter http://nyti.ms/y5uJfZ it will begin offering a new television service that will stream local television stations to internet users. It will cost $12/month. Many people already have ditched their cable television service so it’s not exactly ground-breaking. In fact what I found most interesting were the comments from readers.

Here are samples of a few and I found them to be extremely interesting and indicative of an audience that has a both a good understanding of the landscape as well as some interesting alternative solutions.:

“This could work in Manhattan. Antenna’s do not pull in hardly any channels for many of us in the city. I would happily pay $12/month for network television only.”

“I own a television machine, but I haven’t used it in years (I do dust it occasionally). But I do have basic cable through Time Warner only because I need to have that in order to get my high speed Internet service (talk about lousy deals).“

“On those very rare occasions I might feel compelled to watch a broadcast, I have Windows Media Center on my computer, which is hooked up to a $5 antenna (I bought that at the dollar store in my neighborhood and it works quite well). I pick up all the broadcast networks, their sub-networks, and several radio stations. Seems like a much better deal than yet another service like Aereo.”

“I use Remote Potato (an iOS app) with Windows Media Center to do this and it cost me the price of an antenna, digital tuner, and the app.”

“Good-bye TWC!”

“This is going to completely change the way cable service providers do business. NYC today, nationwide tomorrow. It will be interesting to watch how cable companies change the way they engage with their existing/ new customer base in order to remain relevant.”

“TWC doesn’t advertise it, or make it easy to use, but if you ask they will sell you basic broadcast channels only for around $18 a month. I’ve been using it for a few years, connected to a dedicated computer which I use as a DVR, netflix streaming box and blu-ray player. I tried an antenna but it didn’t work for me because I’m on the wrong side of the building. My total cable/internet bill is $53 a month. “

“TV service for $12 a month? That will soon double. Still, every cable TV outfit around will try to destroy these guys immediately. And I wonder how they plan to keep it only in NYC. Of course they will feature the same low quality programming and the same “all or nothing” menu that is the norm today. Let’s see what happens!?

“I don’t understand – they’re “offering” to make me pay for channels I can get over the air for free?”

“Bravo. Living in an area without cable. Satellite is the only available service. The monthly cost is too high for a very light TV user. This service is an answer to my prayers. “

“Add this to the list of streaming services that choke my cable broadband connection. Let’s take OTA HD programming (which is free and which already has its own spectrum) and stream it needlessly over the internet, doubling the overall bandwidth that it takes to watch TV and increasing the costs. Great idea!”

I actually learned a few things just from reading the comments and that’s the most interesting thing about the article itself. A $5 antenna? And who refers to their set as a ‘television machine’? Reader comments are not always that interesting but often are don’t you think?

Like Yogi Berra says – you can observe a lot by watching.

I don’t have anything against the American legend Dick Clark. In fact I briefly met him at an event about ten years ago and found him to be a nice and friendly man. I don’t know about you, but watching Dick Clark on television is painful and I just don’t understand why he wants to continue. Sure it’s his show, and NBC has this year again allowed Mr. Clark to have ultimate control of ‘Dick Clark’s New Years Rockin’ Eve’. This year will be the 40th year of the show and more than 18 million people watched it last year. I was not one of them.

A six hour show with a multitude of entertainers and talent, this year’s program will pay tribute to itself. http://wapo.st/w1k7n5. Several years ago Ryan Seacrest began to co-host the show with Mr. Clark so we can expect to see Mr. Seacrest for many years to come in his personal quest to become the next Merv Griffin (Merv actually introduced Ryan Seacrest to the world).

I also have no problem with Ryan Seacrest but the pairing with Dick Clark does nothing but make things even more awkward. Do you think Dick Clark watches the recorded proceedings of the DCNYRE afterward and thinks – ‘I still have it going on’? News flash for you Dick – you don’t have it going on and having an annual opportunity to watch you decline is hardly something that will send me charging forward into a new year.
Larry Klein who has been producing the show since 1977 had this to offer, “Dick is still Dick Clark,” he said. “His communication is a little bit more difficult, but he’s still involved in contemporary music. He listens to a lot; he knows a lot, he’s still involved in the production. This is very important to him. This is one of his children.”

Parents need to allow their children to leave the nest. After forty years don’t you think it’s about time Dick Clark allowed that to happen? His legacy is more than secure and I think by continuing to be on air Mr. Clark is practicing nothing more than self-indulgence. This bothers me more than anything else since I feel Dick Clark is one of the great American success stories and an institution unto himself.

My hope is the coming Dick Clark’s New Years Rockin’ Eve 2012 version will be his final one on air and he can watch next year on television like so many others.

What do you think – should Dick Clark still be on the air?

When I went to see Avatar in 3D in 2009 I felt it was an interesting and worthwhile experience. What I did not realize is that the story and imagery were woven so well together that they transcended the fact that the movie was in 3D. I’ve since seen Avatar in un-3D (i.e. regular film) and enjoyed the movie very much. That movie experience was not downgraded for the lack of it being in 3D.

Over the Christmas holiday weekend my family and I went to see Tintin www.tintin.com . I’ve always been a fan of Tintin having read the comics when I was a kid and watching the cartoons when they came out 20 years ago in 1991. The Steven Spielberg treatment of the Tintin characters was true to the franchise. The characters and the story again put together so well. Yet the experience was not enhanced by the fact that we saw the movie in 3D. My daughter says this all the time and that she would rather NOT see a movie in 3D if it can be avoided.

Once again the $15/ticket price for the four of us was eyebrow-raising. It shows me that it will not be too long before a family of four could pay $100 to go to see a movie in the theater. I still feel the movie theater experience is a very worthwhile and unique one that cannot be recreated in 99.9% of home theaters.

But shelling out $60 for four 3D tickets due to the supposed enhancement of the movie-going experience is most times just a bad value. 3D techniques do not seem to have advanced all that much and the ‘cool’ factor having something float by you in a 3D movie is highly overrated. I look at the 3D technology having not advanced much – sort of like modern day toasters.

Apparently there’s hope on the way for a vastly improved 3D experience. An improved experience would I hope include the need of having to even wear 3D glasses. I don’t know anyone that actually likes having to wear 3D glasses to watch a movie.

So save your money folks – I think my daughter is right.

What do you think?

Over the past week and a half I have become aware of two separate stories that I believe are closely related. Last week there were reports circulating on comedian Louis C.K. (who I have only seen in passing on cable at some point along the way) and his novel approach to marketing his latest made for television performance. David Carr in his regularly excellent column in the New York Times highlighted the effort in Monday’s paper – http://nyti.ms/vMq0O7 .

The story on Louis C.K. is that he decided to “go direct with his fans: no cable special, no middleman, just a simple download for $5 on his Web site to see his comedy show “Louis C. K.: Live at the Beacon Theater.” A true DIY (do-it-yourselfer) Louis C.K. writes, directs, produces and acts in his own series “Louie” and now he is a bona fide distributor. What impressed me more is that shortly after he went out with this novel offer – 200,000 people paid $ 5.00 each for two streams and three downloads of the special. It cost him $ 250,000 to create the show and he will bring in roughly $1 million. To say that’s not bad would be an understatement.

Unrelated I saw another story yesterday on a website unboundbooks.co.uk – a site live in the UK and soon to be in the U.S. as well. The idea of Unbound is best first read straight from their website –

“BRINGING AUTHORS AND READERS TOGETHER

We think authors and readers should decide which books get published. On the Unbound site, (unfortunately the U.S. site www.unbound.com or unboundbooks.com is not yet up but the British site www.unbound.co.uk is up and running), authors pitch their ideas directly to you. If you like what you read, you can pledge your support to help make the book happen. Everyone who supports an author before they reach 100% of the funding target gets their name printed in every edition of that book. All levels include a digital version and immediate access to the author’s shed while they write the book, and supporters of projects that don’t reach their target receive a full refund.”

You can read more from an article straight from The Guardian – http://bit.ly/rxELnz

In short the idea is that a big problem for the publishing industry is that many book advances to authors are non-returnable and do not earn out their advances. What Unbound proposes to do is to have potential readers pay in advance for the book that has yet to be written. It reads better than it first sounds –
“The site, launched last May, acts as a forum for authors to pitch books directly to readers, who, if they like the sound of a project, commit money right away, before the book has even been written. Each book has a target number of pledges it must receive to be viable (generally between 500 and 1,000). When you click on a book on the site, you are shown how many pledges it needs in total, and the percentage it has so far received. You can then pledge your support at a number of levels: from buying the eBook (generally £10), through purchasing the hardback (usually £20) or a signed copy (£50), all the way up to being invited to the launch party (typically £150) or, sometimes, going on an excursion with the author.
Justin Pollard, one of the founders, points out that although pledging involves handing over actual money, supporters aren’t taking a risk, because if the book doesn’t receive the required number of pledges, the project is scrapped and everyone gets their money back. Meanwhile, the publisher avoids exposing itself to upfront advances.

Crowdsourcing has become a bit of a buzzword but to see it in action in both the case of Louis C.K. and Unbound impresses me greatly.

How about your take on these new models?