By admin | Published:
August 17, 2006
Yesterday I read a very amusing report about the growing trend of people to turn socks into favorite friends. De Telegraaf reports this to be a worldwide trend.. With this character, designed by yourself you express yourself and have an ever caring friend with you all the time.
I started wondering which of my socks would have a chance of becoming my caring friend. My socks are actually quit boring, most of the time. But sometimes I hide Disney characters in my boots. One of my favourites is Thinkerbell, naughty emotional little bitch. Kind of fits to (the dark side..) of my otherwise “lovely” character. Furthermore I found the idea of actualising an avatar for IRL funny. Is it because we are getting more used to building avatars in virtual worlds? Is it a transcending of virtual habits back into everyday life? When Thinkerbell transforms to be my favorite avatar sock friend I will upload a lovely picture of her.. promissed 
By admin | Published:
August 15, 2006
ABC is developing mobile phonegames as extensions to its succesprogrammes Desperate Housewives and Lost. Unfortunately in Europe not yet available because I am very curious how they have adapted the content to a light (mobile) game.
US cable network HBO has released one of its original documentaries for free for the first time as a video podcast available from its own website and from Apple’s iTunes Music Store.
(c21 media.net)
By admin | Published:
August 15, 2006
Twentieth Century Fox is passing by its’ coldwater fear of offering films online. Warner Bros already started film offerings online a while ago. It seems the big 5 are not waiting for a catastrophhic market make over as the music industry has experienced through Peer to Peer. Already most of the P2P traffic (which is the major part of internettraffic worldwide) is for movie content. The movie mologs are following the i-tunes model and started an online offering. When the price is right, the advantages are that users can get their movies ‘clean’.
Listening to the wishes of your customers is always a wise thing to do. The obstacles for listening to these wishes are often organisation-culturally dominated. It takes courage to break through these barriers, but on the other hand, there is no other way.
By admin | Published:
August 11, 2006
Slowly but certainly the race for ’share of voice’ in digital media space is heating up.
CanWest launches Blackberry TV: Global TV parent CanWest MediaWorks is launching bbTV, the first advertising-fuelled Canadian market effort designed to deliver video content to users of BlackBerry handheld devices
Sony preps new AXN channels for Europe: Sony is poised to roll out a string of new channels across Europe under its AXN action banner, with Germany, Switzerland and Austria all on the agenda and an animé network for the UK.
Channel 4’s VoD plans go beyond TV : UK terrestrial Channel 4 is planning to launch on-demand services that go far beyond television in its continuing quest to gain a “disproportionate share of voice” in the digital media space.
(www.c21media.net)
By admin | Published:
August 10, 2006
The explosive growth of YouTube (300 % in a year), myspace and video google (no figures yet, but I am convinced it is growing extensively) is making the notion of users wanting to generate content more solid.
Now in the Netherlands@ home is adding a UGC service with Zizo to the offerings. Users can send in material, that is rated and then aired. Idols on a daily bases. And NCRV is starting up ‘videotalent” http://www.videotalent.nl a video upload service for the public.
All of these, it is a rough land of new beginnings, lovely to see. Yet at the same time it needs to grow beyond the material of the poodle in the pool to generate a break through. I am awaiting for the next global news issue (allas it will probably be a catastrofic situation) where witnesses will send in their reports and google video and youtube will be the number one news deliverers because of the fastness and the “no control” over the content that is an essential part of the “format”. And for now, nothing wrong with the poodle in the pool, for what is the information we like to share anyway? What do users want to show off themselves? Wonderfull sources to explore..
By admin | Published:
July 3, 2006
A good line up of speakers for the Amsterdam Cross Media week. But.. only large industry players. I miss the balance of innovative and creative thinkers from the scientific fields and arts. It looks like media republic was dominant in creating the programme.
As time goes by, I am getting reactions from accredited thinkers and (artistic) workers in the cross media field that they have not been contacted or invited to join the debate. I will certainly visit the week, but I will certainly miss these thinkers to feed a good debate. Sharing insights is one of the prerequisites of crossmedia. ..like multiple points of view… Besides if I look at the list of speakers I can certainly see a bias in favour of the organisers, that have created a nice image-boosting platform to embed their own messages in at cost of the Amsterdam community that sponsors with… 500.000 Euro. Where a big mouth will take you..
http://www.crossmediaweek.com
By admin | Published:
June 6, 2006
Get inspired at this wonderfull new blog of the mediacenter portraying visions that count!
And join in the debate!
http://www.mediacenterblog.org/we_imagine/
By admin | Published:
May 22, 2006
Finally we hear something of a crossmedia experiment coming from Talpa.
So far now all Talpa has done is follow the developments and copy the successes, like ‘programma gemist’ as a copy of ‘uitzending gemist’ a pubcasters’s initiative. There is nothing wrong with copying good ideas. Better a good copy then a bad idea. But as De Mol suggested a year ago when he launched the Talpa channel, that the medialandscape will ‘change more in five years then in 25 before (or something like that..)’ I agreed fully and was anxious to see what would be his initiatives in this respect. So far Talpa has played it safe by following the lead of others. I found that dissapointing, because.. now we had one person with a view on the future that could make a change because he has the means to experiment and he can suffer some loss there to get some win. He could speed up initiatives, making use of the fact there is not a lot of negotiating necessary to start a project. This could give him a big advantage in the market place. He could differentiate at a high speed, with projects failing in total, some in part en some successes. Instead all we saw whas more of the same. Not strong strategically.
Now this initiative starting from june 1 I find interesting, because it will tell you more about how people will act sharing at televison program while being at another place. With MSN you can simultanuously with your buddies watch the same stream of a program and chat about the programme will doing that. This gives Talpa a very interesting insite into what the viewer is experiencing while watching their programs. Good material to rethink what the viewers are negative about and to see what is succesfull to further build on. That is listening to your public and deciding what is relevant to them. Two of the key drivers of crossmedia communication in my perception. The article is in Dutch..
http://www.emerce.nl/nieuws.jsp?id=1488594&WT.mc_id=nb
By admin | Published:
May 3, 2006
Take a look at the we media conference currently held in London:
http://www.mediacenterblog.org/events/06/wemedialondon/home/
Happening now and probably it will be accessible afterwards too.