Archive for February, 2007
Thursday, February 8th, 2007
Via Reuters
It’s not all fun and violence in video games, according to makers of a new genre of games which claim to boost players’ mental health and self-esteem.
A group of developers inspired by the success of Nintendo Co. Ltd.’s “Brain Age” title that gets the gray matter working with math and word puzzles, hopes to harness the power and popularity of video games to boost psychological health.
Among them is Tokyo-based Dimple Entertainment, which in May will begin selling the unconventional title “DS Therapy” in Japan for Nintendo’s (7974.OS) hand-held DS player.
Answer a few light-hearted questions on topics ranging from love to money and the title promises to deliver a measurement on your mental and emotional health on a daily basis.
Mark Baldwin, a psychology professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and designer of another new title “MindHabits Booster,” is hoping his game will make people feel good about themselves.
Baldwin and his research team designed the game based on social psychology research after finding that repetitive components from video game play could be used to shape the way people think and how they perceive themselves.
The game, distributed via www.Mindhabits.com, tries to address insecurity and stress by having players repeatedly pick a smiling, approving face from a group of frowning faces, training players to look for acceptance and ignore rejection.
“All it does is change your attention from one thing to another, but that can make a big difference (in self-esteem and lower stress),” said Baldwin, who is releasing new game study results later this year and hopes to take his game from the lab to stores.
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Posted in VideoGames | No Comments »
Thursday, February 8th, 2007
Microsoft Casual announced a plan to share a percentage of in-game advertising revenue from its MSN Games with casual game developers. The new Ad-Share Program is designed to spur innovation in the casual games space and provide an additional stream of revenue to developers. The company estimates developers of the top five games could share up to $250,000 annually, based on current in-game advertising revenue rates.
“Casual game developers traditionally operate on a limited revenue model, typically receiving a set fee from downloadable titles or a small royalty associated with game subscriptions,” said studio manager for Chris Early. “Now, by sharing in-game advertising revenue, we’re allowing a more diversified business model that gives our partners more resources to create new, innovative titles for the 13 million people we see every month on MSN Games.”
For more details:
- check out the release
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Wednesday, February 7th, 2007
David Wesson is an Internet media-marketing consultant and has worked in the entertainment and advertising industries for the last 15 years in Europe and Australia.
(Article as published in march 2007 issue of Marketing Magazine )
The penetration of broadband and the sophistication of the end-user means that the Internet is no longer seen merely as an information gathering point and purchase space. Today it is as much an entertainment hub and is part of the digital revolution changing the face of entertainment. We look at current trends and initiatives in digital entertainment; how the lounge room/online entertainment space of tomorrow will look and impact on the future of digital entertainment. We also look at the culture of consumer behavior and how the industry will be able to deliver what the consumer wants now and in the future.
Read the full article.
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Wednesday, February 7th, 2007
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Visits to MySpace accounted for nearly 12% of all time spent online by US Internet users, according to Compete Inc. The study shows traffic data put US Internet user time spent at MySpace over other sites including eBay, Google, AOL and YouTube. Yahoo! came in second, accounting for 8.5% of time spent online by US Internet users.
The amount of time spent at MySpace suggests that people are leaving the site open during the day to see when new instant messages or e-mails arrive from friends. The multitasking habit is especially strong with teen Internet users. Several of the sites could easily be used simultaneously: MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and AIM all appeal to the younger generation of Internet users, and this group is also most likely to multitask when online.
(more…)
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Tuesday, February 6th, 2007
Cupertino, Calif. - Apple CEO Steve Jobs fired a direct shot at the record industry on Tuesday, in the form of an open letter posted to the company’s website that suggests that labels should abandon digital rights management (DRM) technology and release songs for sale in an unprotected format that can play on any device.
“Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats,” Jobs wrote.
“In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat.”
A number of consumer advocacy groups in Europe, from countries including France, Finland, Norway, Germany and the Netherlands, have complained that Apple has a digital music monopoly, as songs purchased from its iTunes Store will only play on its iPod.
They have called on Apple to license its FairPlay security technology so that iTunes songs can play on rival players.
In his letter, Jobs suggested that these complaints might be better directed at the record industry, which insisted on the addition of digital rights management to songs before licensing them to Apple for sale on iTunes.
“Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free,” Jobs wrote.
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Posted in Music, iPod | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 6th, 2007
I’m pleased to announce my addition to the advisory board of UrbanWorld Wireless and excited to work with them as they expand their business from mobile to a full fledged digital media company.
Company Unveils Newly Inducted Advisory Board - A Who’s Who of Entertainment and Technology and New Digital Entertainment StrategyLOS ANGELES, Feb. 6 /PRNewswire/ — UrbanWorld Wireless announces today its transition from the wireless world into the digital arena. Additionally, the company unveils its “Fab Five” Advisory Board team that will work hand in hand with the company in executing the new shift in strategy. The newly appointed advisory board is comprised of:
* Mark Levy, CEO and founder, Maxxomedia, a digital media consultancy and licensing agency — over 20 years experience in the media, entertainment and technology industries.
* Keith Clinkscales, SVP/General Manager of ESPN Publishing — oversees all operations of the award winning magazine both domestically and internationally. Has successfully headed multiple magazines titles.
* LaSean Smith, senior product manager, Motorola — known as a digital music pioneer, credited with helping design and develop one of the first successful digital media distribution platforms.
* Daymond John, CEO and founder, FUBU — built the multimillion dollar international apparel brand from the ground up. His honors include “50 Most Influential Men” and “Top Forty Under Forty” and others.
* Jon Bukosky, Managing Partner, BFD/ventures — over 18 years experience in the mobile/digital media market and has served as a former senior executive of 4 mobile entertainment companies.
(more…)
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Posted in Mobile, Music | No Comments »
Monday, February 5th, 2007
Dan’l Lewin, Corporate VP of Microsoft’s Emerging Business Team remarks on gaming trends on his blog:
Social and Connected Entertainment – Online and On-Demand
Got game? Millions do. Gaming is clearly one of the trend stories of the decade. It is making an impact on our lives no matter where we are — in our living rooms in front of the TV, on our cell phones, working at our PC, and coming to a portable media player near you. The next level of gaming is here, and it is being driven by three converging trends: high-definition gaming; on-demand, online gaming; and social entertainment. So hold on, and get ready for a screaming fast, gaming experience. One that dominates with breakneck performance, captivates with stunning visuals and heart-pounding, even breathtaking audio tracks, and goes deep into virtual worlds. And remember PacMan? It and other classic arcade games are making a big comeback. In fact, PacMan is a featured game on Xbox Live Arcade. So what’s up with gaming? What are the trends, and how do they benefit startups, and, most important, what are the must-have games for the holiday season? Sit back, sip some eggnog, invite a friend or two over, and let’s jump into gaming.
Ho Ho Ho. Microsoft Gets Social — Our Game Plan for a Connected Entertainment Experience
Party of one? Rarely happens. Entertainment is becoming a shared, connected experience. A social experience. In fact, we envision a time when all gaming and entertainment services will be connected. Imagine this scenario: A gamer starts a connected game on her Xbox at home, continues it on the cell phone in the cab on the way to the airport, and finishes it up on the plane by plugging into the armrest. It’s increasingly about a social experience — and it’s not just male-dominated anymore.
Ultimately, our vision is to move toward more connected entertainment everywhere, and get everyone involved in the action. Women. Young kids. Older adults.
Beyond gaming, Microsoft TV software platforms are also an integral part of Microsoft’s overall connected entertainment strategy — one that will enable rich TV experiences and new forms of TV-based entertainment and information services. Through Windows Vista, Xbox 360, new mobile devices, and an emerging wave of software-based services, we are delivering more connected and richly personalized experiences for consumers. With all of these converging elements, Microsoft is enabling a platform, and the underlying architecture and tools, for this new world of high-definition gaming and this social entertainment experience. And it all starts with game development.
Read the rest of the article.
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Posted in Online Gaming, VideoGames | No Comments »
Monday, February 5th, 2007
By Ward Triplett and David Frese
McClatchy Newspapers
Some day soon, the television and the personal computer will be nearly indistinguishable.
It’s happening before our eyes. We’re able to time-shift when we watch “Heroes” on our digital video recorders, and we’re sneaking peeks at snippets from last night’s “Colbert Report” on YouTube. To say nothing of downloads for our iPods.
Not one to overlook an audience (or a revenue source), the networks are taking their first steps in streaming video of old episodes of our favorite shows. We took a quick tour of the networks’ sites, and here’s what we found.
But first, a couple of notes: Some of this content is changing daily, so what’s here today may be gone later today. Plus you’ll need a broadband or high-speed connection. And sometimes even that’s not enough to watch the videos uninterrupted.
Continue for a list of current web based TV offerings
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Posted in Digital TV, Web | No Comments »
Monday, February 5th, 2007
Sales of mobiles phones in China rose by 40%, to 120 million handsets reported the official Chinese news agency, Xinhua, citing the deputy chief of the China Mobile Communications Association Xie Linzhen.
Xie also stated that sales are expected to rise further this year, to 150 million handsets. China manufactured some 450 million handsets last year, with 350 million being exported.
According to the Ministry of Information, foreign handset vendors such as Nokia and Motorola hold the lion’s share of the market, while local mobile phone makers sold only 50 million handsets to domestic and overseas markets.
“Chinese phone users on average buy new mobile phones every 21 months,” Xie said.
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Sunday, February 4th, 2007
I ran across a site this morning that allows you to convert a video from any format (.mov, QT, FLVto a video in any other format. The service at www.mux.am (.am is Armenia - for those of you wondering). You enter the url of a video you want to convert, choose the outputfile type and the size of the video, bit rate and frames per second. Pop in your e-mail address where you want the file delivered when it is finished.
The site says Mux is for personal, non-commercial use - I suppose to make it easier for people to share their own videos online - which is a service I personally could use. I just wonder a bit about what happens when people find a video that the owner doesn’t want shared and points this service to it.
The service also allows for you to convert and deliver any video to your cell phone. Just enter the url for the video, your cell phone number and Mux does the rest. Currently only available for subscribers of Cingular, T-mobile and Sprint in the US. Again a very interesting service for sending home video - but what about copywritten material that the owner wishes to exploit commerically?
There is a link to Amazon Web Services, the new service offering from Amazon that provides developers with direct access to Amazon’s robust technology platform. I’m not sure what type of due diligence is done when a company wants to use the platform or what the liability might be. Just speculating.
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Posted in DMET Disruptors, File Sharing | No Comments »
Friday, February 2nd, 2007
By Michelle Kessler, USA TODAY Fri Feb 2, 6:54 AM ET
SAN FRANCISCO - Jeff Stewart directs an educational technology program at Macon State College in Georgia. But even he was quickly overwhelmed while TV shopping last month.
The sets at his local Sam’s Club all looked nice, but each touted a different alphabet soup of new features, from HDTV to LCD. Stewart didn’t want to make a mistake. He left without buying anything.
That’s not what TV makers want to hear, especially as buyers flock to stores ahead of this Sunday’s Super Bowl. Sony, Samsung and others hope a host of new TV technologies will keep the once-stagnant market growing fast. The latest: “smart” sets that connect to computer networks or the Internet.
But as TV makers rush ever-changing new technologies to the market, they run the risk of confusing and alienating customers.
Read the rest of the article.
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Friday, February 2nd, 2007
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According to BIGresearch’s latest Simultaneous Media Usage Study of over 15,000 consumers, marketers in 2007 are faced with the new reality of a consumer controlled communication model, with the advent of the Time Magazine selection of “you” as the Person of the Year in 2006, and “the consumer” having been selected as the Agency of the Year by Ad Age. With media multitasking growing as consumers have less time and more media options. The intermittent usage of media which occurs during simultaneous consumption creates a serious problem for marketers who rely on exposure to media models since the anticipated exposure is being shared with many other media options and may never occur.
(more…)
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Thursday, February 1st, 2007
By: Steve Myers (steve@thetamusic.com) Steve Myers is president and chief enthusiast of Theta Music Technologies, which specializes in the development of music-related software applications.
Over the past few years, I’ve often been asked if file sharing - especially music file sharing - is as widespread in Japan as in the US and Europe. My answer has generally been something along the lines of ‘it certainly exists here, but the number of people doing it is pretty small compared to most other countries.’ In just the past year, though, we’ve seen a sharp increase in action taken by Japanese record industry and copyright organizations to step up efforts against file sharing.
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Thursday, February 1st, 2007
Jupiter Research recently issued this press release on mobile content and entertainment projections. Jupiter analyst Thomas Husson thought it was interesting to see how some of the press coverage took a quite negative angle from that of the actual release. Here are some key takeaways from his comments on his blog:
- JR does not expect mobile content and entertainment to be mainstream defined as a penetration rate>50%. Reaching a critical mass (between 15 and 25% depending on services) of users effectively paying for services is not what he would call bad news.
- Free content (music sideloaded from the PC, mobile video created by end-users) will co-exist with a premium model and with ad-funded services.
- Personalization services such as ringtones and logos will struggle to move beyond the core youth market.
- Most new content category growth occurs at the expense of growth of traditional ring tone formats: young consumers have limited budgets
- Messaging will continue to dominate European mobile services revenues but there will be a decline in SMS revenues.
- Mobile phones will remain a personal communication platform, even beyond voice.
- There is no doubt that the market will grow significantly in the coming years and that mobile phones will have a huge and yet unknown impact on our daily lives with new innovative services that have not even been conceived yet. But let’s keep both realistic and optimistic: build the foundations first and the house second.
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Thursday, February 1st, 2007
SPRINGWISE.COM
Amie Street aims to make it easy and affordable for consumers to discover new independent music. What makes it unique? Every song sold at the ‘fly little music site’ starts off being free, and the price increases to a maximum of USD 0.98 depending on how many people download it. The more popular a song, the faster its price will increase to 98 cents. Besides giving early buyers a better deal, the market price system gives them the added pleasure of seeing they’ve discovered a song or artist before everyone else has.
Members are also rewarded for recommending music. As explained by Amie Street: “We know music is social, and the process of music discovery is stunted by traditional digital music retail sites because they are not social (or fun). Music discovery is best catalyzed by communication between people, so we reward fans for recommending songs to their friends by giving them credit to buy more music.” If a member reviews or otherwise recommends a song, they’re credited with the song’s price increase. So, if you recommend a song while it’s priced at 10 cents, and the price goes up to 90 cents, you earn 80 cents worth of credits. Promotion isn’t left solely to the community, though. Amie Street does its part, from interviewing bands and posting their videos, to organizing showcase concerts in New York.
Artists maintain full ownership of their work and receive 70% of every sale after a first USD 5 to cover storage, bandwidth and transaction costs for that song. All MP3s sold through the website are DRM-free, so can be used on any music player, without restrictions. Combined with the knowledge that artists are getting their fair share of a song’s revenues, that should make consumers more willing to pay for music downloads. One to watch!
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