YouTube and Dell to live stream summer music festivals

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digitalmediawi
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For those who love music but hate queuing for portable toilets, YouTube and Dell have renewed their partnership and will live stream four of the most popular U.S. music festivals in a presentation that includes multiple live channels, behind-the-scenes content and exclusive artist interviews.

The partnership, which was announced at South by Southwest, includes the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza (pictured) and Austin City Limits (ACL).

Robert Kyncl, global head of content for YouTube, said this initiative fits the Google company’s commitment to delivering original content and unique entertainment in a way that benefits audiences as well as content creators and content owners.

The event production company for ACL and Lollapalooza is C3 Presents. “Timing is everything when you’re providing online, HD video and audio content during large festivals,” said Daniel Gibbs, video director for C3 Presents. He credits Dell Precision workstations and Adobe Premiere Pro software for cutting production time in half, enabling him to bring “more live music, backstage action, audience interaction and festival footage online than ever before.”

YouTube will be hosting the live streaming experience from the following four festivals, which provided their own descriptions:

  • New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (New Orleans) – April 27 – May 6, 2012 – A celebration of Louisiana’s indigenous music culture that features thousands of musicians on multiple stages over 10 days supported by 400,000 visitors.
  • Bonnaroo (Manchester, TN) – June 7-10, 2012 – Features 80,000 campers, 700 acres of Tennessee nature, 150 performances and 10+ stages of music.
  • Lollapalooza (Chicago) – Aug. 3-5, 2012 – Spanning over 115 acres of Grant Park and 95,000 attendees a day, Lollapalooza features multiple stages, and a diverse array of 130+ artists from hip-hop, electronica, reggae, indie, rock, modern roots, and many more.
  • Austin City Limits (Austin, TX) – Oct. 12-14, 2012 – ACL plays host to more than 130 artists from across the globe on multiple stages on 46 acres of green grass in beautiful Zilker Park, bringing 75,000 music lovers a day together with unforgettable music and unmistakable Austin vibe.

Related links:

Press release – http://tinyurl.com/75u6k68

http://www.nojazzfest.com

http://www.bonnaroo.com

http://www.lollapalooza.com

http://www.aclfestival.com

Photo of Lollapalooza 2011 by Jack Edinger

 

Will NBC's digital screeners diminish piracy?

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digitalmediawi
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In an announcement demonstrating the migration away from physical product even affects the world of screeners, NBC has released a new app designed for the exclusive use of Television Academy members

NBCU Screen It is powered by cloud content services provider Brightcove Inc. and is intended to replace the truckloads of DVDs that the network mails to the more than 15,000 people who vote on the Emmys.

Widespread adoption of NBCU Screen It would obviously save a lot of money on manufacturing and postage. But it also provides an opportunity for the network to put relevant information right there in the app, where it’s more likely to be seen than are the typical dead tree materials that get sent with DVDs, and retains the branding association between NBC and its programs.

Of course, it also lets NBC know who actually watched the TV shows they were sent, which content is having the most impact, and to recall the shows if it wants to. It additionally makes it possible to provide targeted background information to members in each of the 28 Television Academy peer groups.

Secure digital screeners may even put a dent in piracy and the common practice of letting friends borrow the discs in advance of release. Looking at movies for precedent, the 2012 Oscars were the first to show a decline in the number of Oscar nominee screeners that ended up pirated, and it’s the first to use secured digital formats in place of physical product.

NBCU Screen It is built on the Brightcove App Cloud content app platform, which combines an open HTML5 web development model with intelligent cloud services that continuously optimize the performance of the app, measure the effectiveness of different content, and enable dynamic updates to the app in the future.

“The Brightcove App Cloud platform has made it easy for us to very quickly build and deploy a powerful app that delivers the best possible viewing experience on the iPad,” said Richard Licata, executive vice president, Communications, NBC Entertainment. “As part of this groundbreaking initiative, Television Academy members now have the convenience and flexibility to watch our NBC original programming and vote for the Primetime Emmy Awards responsibly.”

Working with Brightcove, NBC built and rolled out a native iOS app for the iPad that can be extended to other iOS and Google Android devices in the future.

“We are thrilled that App Cloud is the platform behind this innovative new app from NBC and that we’re able to help the organization deliver the best viewing experience possible to all of the Emmy voters,” said Eric Elia, vice president of TV solutions at Brightcove. “We look forward to making it easy for NBC to build and operate equally impactful app experiences in the future.”

Related links:

http://www.nbcuni.com

http://www.brightcove.com

http://www.emmys.tv

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nbcu-screen-it/id501167754?mt=8

'You vs. Cat' introduces inter-species iPad gaming [with video]

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digitalmediawi
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A new tablet game, You vs. Cat, lets users test their cat-like reflexes by competing against an actual cat. Not a digital cat, a real live pet cat of the player’s choosing.

You vs. Cat comes from Nestle Purina PetCare’s Friskies brand, which obviously has a vested interest in promoting cat ownership. Even so, the free app has a credible claim to be the first dual-species tablet game. While images of things cats like to eat zoom around the screen, players of both species score one point for each one they capture with a paw or fingertip (depending on their anatomy).

There’s even an automatic scoreboard at YouVsCat.com, where Friskies has posted the You vs. Cat World-Wide Leaderboard to track gameplay on all iPads that are connected to the internet.

For those whose cats would rather indulge the solitary side of their nature by playing alone, Friskies also offers GamesForCats.com, which includes feline gaming options like Cat Fishing and Party Mix Up.

“After such positive response to last year’s launch of several Friskies tablet games and apps for cats, we wanted to just keep pushing the play button. You vs. Cat takes the fun of feeding cats’ senses through play to a completely new level,” said Alison Coburn, Friskies assistant brand manager. “With this new game we’re continuing to inspire curiosity and discovery beyond mealtime and bring something completely new to the world of cat play.”

Related links:

http://www.YouVsCat.com

http://gamesforcats.com

Boku secures $35 million and Telefónica partnership for mobile payments

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digitalmediawi
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Global mobile payments company Boku has secured $35 million from New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Telefónica Digital, Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Index Ventures and Khosla Ventures. The funding will be used to acquire additional staff and grow its infrastructure as part of Boku’s ongoing expansion strategy.

This brings the total Boku has raised to $75 million since it was formed in 2008. The company operates in 67 countries and partners with 250 mobile network operators.

“Payments are going mobile and we want to be at the forefront of this trend,” said Matthew Key, chairman & CEO, Telefónica Digital. “Boku has quickly established itself as a true innovator in the mobile commerce space and this investment gives us access to their tools, infrastructure and know how, ideally complementing our own mobile payments expertise.”

He added that Telefónica Digital also is embarking on a global partnership with Boku to enhance operator billing capabilities and improve mobile wallet services.

Tracy Isacke, who runs the Venture Capital arm of Telefónica Digital and is based in Mountain View, Calif., led the investment in Boku.Telefónica Digital, a global business division of Telefónica, is headquartered in London with regional centres in Silicon Valley, Sao Paolo, Spain and Tel Aviv. Jajah, Terra, Tuenti, Media Networks Latin America, giffgaff and 48 are all part of the Telefónica Digital group of companies.

“Payments is an industry that requires scale, and in the three years since Boku launched we’ve grown rapidly to partner with more than 250 mobile network operators, processing transactions in 67 countries around the world,” said Mark Britto, CEO of Boku. “We see this investment as a clear vote of confidence from our new partners at NEA and Telefónica.”

Based in San Francisco with offices in Europe and Asia, Boku reaches nearly 4 billion consumers across 66 different countries.

Related links:

http://www.Boku.com

http://www.nea.com

http://www.Telefonica.com

Press release – http://tinyurl.com/8xheh3n

 

Introducing BOKU Accounts. Smarter phone, smarter payments. from BOKU on Vimeo.

Cisco to pay $5 billion to acquire NDS Group, expand video tools

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digitalmediawi
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San Jose, Calif. – Network equipment giant Cisco said on Thursday it will pay approximately $5 billion to acquire U.K.-based NDS Group, a developer of video software and content security tools designed to let service providers and media companies deliver and monetize video.

The deal is expected to close after mid-year, when NDS’s approximately 5,000 employees will join Cisco’s Service Provider Video Technology Group.

NDS provides software and services that allow video subscribers to intuitively view, search and navigate digital content on any device.

Cisco said the acquisition will compliment its own Videoscape platform for service providers and media companies, as well as expand its reach into emerging markets such as China and India, where NDS has an established customer footprint.

“Our strategy has always been driven by customer need and on capturing market transitions,” said John Chambers, the chairman and CEO of Cisco. “Our acquisition of NDS fits squarely into this strategy, enabling content and service providers to deliver new video solutions that leverage the cloud.”

This article was also published in Potomac Tech Wire.

Related links:

http://www.cisco.com

http://www.nds.com

Cisco – press release

 

Syria's al-Assad is a fan of iTunes, intercepted emails reveal

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digitalmediawi
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Syria’s President Bahar al-Assad is a fan of iTunes, according to private emails acquired by British newspaper the Guardian, and his purchases reveal he has modern Western tastes – along with a few that would qualify as embarrassing guilty pleasures in anyone else’s collection.

One thought-provoking purchase is that al-Assad sent an iTunes file of Blake Shelton’s hit “God Gave Me You” to his wife on February 5, a day before his government’s forces fired more than 300 rockets in an attack on the city of Homs.

The paper reports Assad used a New York e-mail address and American Express credit card account in another name to bypass the U.S. sanctions against Syria, but that he did pay for the downloads rather than pirate them. It also cautions that it cannot guarantee the authenticity of the emails but details the reasons it believes they are genuine.

On other occasions he bought “Sexy and I Know It” and other songs by LMFAO (pictured), “We Can’t Go Wrong” by the Cover Girls, “Hurt” by Leona Lewis, “Look at Me Now” by Chris Brown ft. Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes, and “Bizarre Love Triangle” by New Order. He also chose songs by the late Lebanese actor and singer Nasri Shamseddine, who remains very popular throughout the Arab world.

Two selections in particular stand out from those, however. One is “Don’t Talk Just Kiss,” the follow-up single by Right Said Fred after the band’s novelty hit “I’m Too Sexy.” The other is “21st Century Christmas (A Tribute to Cliff Richard)” by the Merry Christmas Players, which he bought on New Year’s Eve 2011.

Related links:

The Guardian [U.K.] – Exclusive: secret Assad emails lift lid on life of leader’s inner circle

The Guardian [U.K.] – Assad’s iTunes emails show music taste from Chris Brown to Right Said Fred

The Guardian [U.K.] – How do we know the Assad emails are genuine?

The Guardian [U.K.] – The Assad emails: the documents

Fox Movie Mall virtual storefronts offer QR code mobile shopping

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digitalmediawi
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0

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and Taubman Centers have collaborated to establish Fox Movie Mall virtual storefronts, an upgrade from DVD vending machines that incorporate considerable marketing pizzazz for the studio’s Fox Movie Mall app.

These installations will be unveiled tomorrow (March 16). Consumers decide which movie they want from a “wallscape” display (pictured) and fire up the free Fox Movie Mall mobile app. Scanning the chosen title’s QR code takes them to an online store where they can make their purchase and have it mailed to their home.

Selling physical product this way seems like a missed opportunity, especially since the virtual storefronts initially will be featuring a Blu-ray disc that comes with an UltraViolet digital copy – Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked. But it seems more likely that the point of the mall installations is primarily to promote the studio’s movies and the app itself.

That theory is supported by 20th Century Fox simultaneously kicking off a campaign that integrates Alvin and the Chipmunks into the Easter Bunny Set at participating mall locations.

The Fox Movie Mall app has uses beyond just the virtual storefronts, too. The app can be triggered by any Fox DVD image, character image, logo or barcode a consumer happens to encounter, whether it’s on a poster, in an ad, or in a friend’s home entertainment collection.

Using the app also unlocks discounts on purchases along with trailers, clips, games and other goodies. At the moment, for example, it includes access to the Rio coloring app.

Fox Movie Mall virtual storefronts can be found at the Beverly Center in Los Angeles and 17 other participating Taubman shopping centers nationwide.

“The Fox Movie Mall virtual storefronts are a truly unique experience for mall visitors,” said Mary Daily, president & chief marketing officer WW Marketing for Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. “We are constantly looking for new opportunities to reach consumers and this technological advancement has allowed us to further engage with them by offering a convenient and fast way to get the movies they love.”

Related links:

Press release – http://tinyurl.com/75aft5b

http://www.taubman.com

http://www.foxconnect.com

 

Live Nation Entertainment establishes entrepreneurial LN Labs Fund

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digitalmediawi
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Live Nation Entertainment is putting its recently acquired talent to good use. The company announced it has established the LN Labs Fund, a global vehicle for strategic investment, partnership and mentoring that will focus on equity participation in early stage start-ups dealing with consumer product development and technology infrastructure.

LN Labs Fund will be managed by two recent hires who formed Live Nation Labs in January: Eric Garland, executive vice president and general manager of Live Nation Labs, whose research and data platform BigChampagne was acquired by Live Nation Entertainment; and Ethan Kaplan, vice president of products of Live Nation Labs, who previously was senior vice president of Technology for Warner Brothers Records. Michael Abrams, president of Digital Ventures is also part of the LN Labs Fund management team. The amount being allocated to the fund was not disclosed.

Michael Rapino, CEO of Live Nation Entertainment, said the plan was to fund new products that further engage music fans and enrich the concert experience in other ways.

“The challenge for these upstarts is finding their market fit,” Kaplan added. “We bring that to the table. We insist on a very clear product market fit for everything we do.”

One indication of the company’s direction is its acquisition earlier this month of Setlist.fm, a wiki-style community of avid music fans who collect and share the setlists of concerts they attend. The company’s platform aggregates all this data, and recently started displaying some of it as charts indicating things like which songs a particular band plays most often, and even pie charts showing the proportion of any particular album’s song a band has played live.

“Setlist.fm built a great product for concert fans and we will further elevate this by incorporating it into Live Nation’s global portfolio across mobile, apps and online,” Rapino said. “Setlist.fm fits perfectly with our goal of providing fans an engaging experience that extends the fun and excitement of the live concert before, during and after the show.”

The publicly visible face of Live Nation Entertainment is its four major businesses: Ticketmaster.com, Live Nation Concerts, Front Line Management Group and Live Nation Network.

Related links:

http://www.livenation.com/investors

Live Nation – LN Labs Fund press release [PDF]

Live Nation –Setlist.fm press release

Setlist.fm aggregated data example (for R.E.M.) – http://tinyurl.com/6tmtygb

 

QR codes help to 'Rock the Vote'

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digitalmediawi
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Rock the Vote is using QR codes to encourage young people to register. The organization has partnered with clothing companies Junk Food and Threads for Thought in a campaign developed by PromoJam that puts a scannable QR code on the front of a t-shirt.

Scanning the code with a suitable mobile reader takes the phone’s user to a mobile page with inspirational and informative videos, social media pages, and Rock the Vote’s online voter registration tool.

Rock the Vote’s president Heather Smith wore one to South by Southwest, which was the campaign’s first public outing. Going forward, the shirts will be available as part of Rock the Vote’s presence at events including the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Annual Festival, the Lollapalooza Music Festival and the Austin City Limits Music Festival. They additionally will be for sale at select retailers and on the two clothing companies’ sites.

“This young generation is one out of four voters in the electorate and growing,” Smith said. “Like it or not, they will define the culture in our country and with luck, they will shape the future of our democracy. Through social media we are encouraging them from simply being consumers of media, to being creators of our democracy.”

Related links:

http://www.blog.rockthevote.com/tag/scan-to-vote

http://www.promojam.com

http://www.junkfoodclothing.com

http://www.threadsforthought.com

 

Augmented reality SI cover reveals exclusive NCAA videos

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digitalmediawi
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Sports Illustrated magazine continues its affection for augmented reality with its NCAA Tournament Preview issue, which goes on sale today.

The experience was built by mobile marketing and technology services company Nellymoser. Readers who scan the fold-out cover using a Sports Illustrated app will see six additional images that appear to float above the page. Each is clickable, an action that launches exclusive videos.

Among these additional videos are moments from the 2011-2012 season, as well as SI announcing its picks for College Basketball Players of the Year and another announcing its Coaches of the Year.

“So often the conversation about technology revolves around new devices. What we’re really excited about is the potential to use technology to bring print pages to life in surprising ways,” said Terry McDonell, Time Inc. Sports Group editor.

The mobile apps are the Sports Illustrated All Access App for iPhone and the Sports Illustrated-Phone for Android.

“We value our close partnership with Sports Illustrated and their push to continuously innovate their magazine with print-to-mobile experiences that engage and entertain SI readers,” said John Puterbaugh, founder and CEO of Nellymoser. “By overlaying dynamic content on top of the printed page via the mobile phone, mobile AR adds a degree of brand interactivity to the magazine experience that is unmatched.”

Related links:

http://www.nellymoser.com

http://www.SI.com

 

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