X|Media|Lab: Brains Bursting in New Zealand

Per Keith Barclay in Screenhub, an overview of the X|Media|Lab event in Auckland. Excerpts below:

The keynote address day at X|Media|Lab contained more than enough information and ideas to make one’s head explode several times over. Commercialising Ideas was an outstanding success, judging by the responses at the end of the day. Even the attendees not participating in the Lab, at which sixteen teams worked with mentors to develop their projects, left the venue buzzing and shell-shocked by the vast array of experience and wisdom on offer. Read more >>

Twitter Tools and Tricks

Reflecting on how mobile media has come to encompass “social media” – especially with Twitter leading the charge – below, please find a few helpful tools and tricks to support your Twitter addiction:

Twitter Tools:

• Seesmic Desktop (Adobe Air client for fast multi-account tweet management and search)
• TweetDeck (alternative to the above)
• Tweetie (the best iPhone client)
• MrTweet (search submission tool to help get followers)
• @geofollow (keyword submission tool)
• Twitpic (for better photo tweeting)
• Twitterholic (follower rankings and stats)
• Last, click here for an exhaustive list of 3rd party twitter apps… Read more >>

Looking for Ideas: A Media + Entertainment Perspective

From today’s keynote on “Looking for Ideas: a Media+Entertainment Perspective” at X|Media|Lab – good turn-out in Auckland, with start-up interest in content and social media.

My keynote was preceded by 42 Entertainment CEO Susan Bonds with her imaginative distribution narrative-styled ARGs (alternate reality games for The Dark Knight‘s “Why So Serious” and Halo 2′s “I Love Bees”), followed by a cross-platform magazine company HB Media Ltd director Vincent Heeringa, who reminded me of a Kiwi equivalent of early Richard Branson and Felix Dennis.

The ARGs were very convincing, and talking to Susan afterwards, there’s more intellectual property here than the studios take advantage of, in terms of content communities created and unique registrants. Early beginnings of a new production model for marketing (and monetizing that marketing).

On the HB Media front, leading with a well designed mag called “Idealog” – very tough model in print media; everyone wants to read magazines and newsprint – especially in bathrooms – but the model needs to be social news crowdsourced…to survive. More updates to follow…

# Apologies on Slideshare crunching the text.

Big Ideas in New Zealand

I’ve just arrived in Auckland, New Zealand for the X|Media|Lab Keynote Conference on “Commercialising Ideas“. Tomorrow, I speak on “Looking for Ideas.” Hmm, ponder, ponder – when evaluating ideas for entertainment and commerce, there are a number of places to look and traps to avoid. I’ll upload the preso tomorrow after the event…

The Big Idea asked me some warm up questions, excerpted below:

1. How do you see the economic model working for independent films in the near future? Do you think a general cinema release will become limited to Tent pole movies while indies focus more on digital distribution… or are film festivals going to help keep a cinema release as a viable option?

Independent films will continue to suffer over the next few years. With so many of the major studios shuttering or closing their indie labels, only smaller micro-distributors will be willing to take small chances on these films. Analog or traditional production costs will drop down to near-digital, i.e., cheap, budgets. Indies will still perform well in festivals, which will suffer hard to keep them alive; but it will be the breakout indies like “Little Miss Sunshine” and similar that will make enough money to make it to the awards. In effect, they will function as actors/directors/above-the-line award vehicles, and hence pick up a little box office loot, and a trophy or two.

On the other hand, smarter, indie distributors will learn how to roll-up niches of indie audiences – i.e., grow a living database of engaged users who will show up to these films in theaters. They’ll work the smaller exhibitors, cable and on-demand channels to channel very specific returns, then package them to create niche brands. So instead of a next-generation Miramax running all kinds of product, these new distributors will concentrate on very tight niches, then leverage those to enter other niches of content and consumers.

Big releases and multiplexes will be tentpole-centric, with the indies who cross-over peeking around the curtains from the smaller screens. Digital distribution will level the dvd window, but not help indies in the theatrical department, which is still the economic driver for the film’s entire run.

2. Do you see this model of multiple-platform marketing being successfully applied to other entertainment or educational media such as publishing or television?

All entertainment (and possible distance learning/education) will have to go multiplatform and social media to survive. You’ll start to even see multi-level marketing (MLM or Amway-style) begin to drive entertainment consumption, too. Again, audience-building, and moving them across all the platforms.

3. What are the main factors in determining the best timeline for release of a film across multiple delivery platforms?

Theatrical is always based on competitive landscape, and/or if there’s a seasonal or school-event tie-in. Other windows’ timelines are less important. Day and date releases typically cannibalize whichever stronger window they’re in, but we’ll see more and more that windows are shrinking: a failed movie will move quicker to straight on-demand as opposed to a quiet window into packaged dvd. We’ll also see more marrying of dvd-mailer and on-demand, expanding content reach for at-home viewers.

Read more at The Big Idea…

Silicon Valley & L.A., A Tale Of Two (Start-Up) Cities?

Last night the good people over at Dealmaker Media L.A. hosted the latest installment of their strategy & mixer series at the William Morris offices in Beverly Hills. The event centered around a panel discussion moderated by Rich Wolpert, Managing Director of The Mailroom Fund discussing the similarities and differences between the start up and investment communities in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles. The panel was a good mix of investors (both angel and institutional) and entrepreneurs — Mike Jones, newly minted COO of MySpace and former CEO of Tsavo Media, Joey Carson, President & CEO of Hollywood Interactive Group, Jason Oberfest, SVP, Business Development at MySpace and Mark Suster, Partner at GRP Partners.

Here are some of my take-aways from the event:

• In general, L.A.-based start ups are more monetization oriented while Silicon Valley start ups tend to place more emphasis on product development and technology.
• Due in part to geographical differences between the two areas, the L.A. start up and venture scene is more disparate and, save for Santa Monica, has no real nerve center (a la Sand Hill Road up north). And as an extension of this reality, there is also a common perception that L.A. does not have the depth and breadth of technology talent that Silicon Valley has, although there are members of the L.A. community (including the L.A. CTO Forum) that are actively working to change this perception.
• Those working in the start up community in Silicon Valley are much more pre-occupied with the equity portion of compensation packages than those in L.A., with one theory being that so many of them know and/or have heard of many others in their position making millions of dollars off of their options – which in turn leads to something along the lines of a sense of entitlement. Read more >>

Future of Journalism, Huffington on Ads and Non-Profits

Via Gerd Leonard’s brilliant Media Futurist: Arianna Huffington talking to the House Committee about the Future of Journalism. Basic points: there’s no “way back” machine, tax subsidies and bailouts are like “putting [one's] finger in a dike to stop the flow of innovation.” I.e., not going to happen. Her two thoughts on saving journalistic media: online advertising and investigative journalism increasingly done (aka “rescued”) by non-profit foundations.

Reelist: X-Men’s Wolverine, Innovating Film Franchises

So begins the inaugural summer blockbuster release season: Wolverine, the X-Men origins backstory or prequel on the immortal, was superhuman enough to pull away from the pack with $87 million or $21,225 per theater average. From Hugh Jackman’s Oscar hosting to the leaking of a screener, the latest Marvel franchise had plenty of build-up, and many are already saying the leak either didn’t hurt or cost the film $20 million. Read more >>

Highest Paid CEOs, Disney’s Iger #3

Associated Press recently listed its highest-paid CEOs for 2008 list with only one media appointment: Bob Iger of The Walt Disney Company in 3rd place with $51.1 million.  With the majority of the top 10 being finance and industrial-based, it’s interesting to see that media/content still has a hold on the environment. With ESPN’s continued growth, Pixar integration, Disney’s recent partnership with NBC/Fox’s Hulu, teen-star “Hannah Montana” and “High School Musical” talent factories, the start of DisneyNature and relatively strong film and tv revenues, not to mention the ongoing international expansion, Disney is running a very diversified content business in a market favoring global tech-based scalability. Alongside a News Corp/20th Century Fox model that slants toward print, news and politics, Disney has maintained a clean global brand while expanding in tech. And, although it’s a big compensation foothold in Iger’s case, it speaks to the power of entertainment and its role in innovating the US. If one of our bigger exports is entertainment, shouldn’t those who drive branded expansion be rewarded? After the jump, a breakdown of the other CEO list-makers and the New Medici “3Ways” to continue innovation… Read more >>