Consumer Confidence in New Technology

If the news coming out of the USA is anything to go by, people are becoming more techno-savvy and computer literate. According to a recent report from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and CNET, while consumer confidence in the overal economy dipped in April, confidence in technology and consumer electronics climbed sharply.

The CEA-CNET Index of Consumer Technology Expectations (ICTE) rose to 77.4, up more than 10 points from March to reach its highest level since December.

If these stats are in any way replicated in South Africa, it bodes well for new media options for filmmakers when creating, marketing and distributing their films.

Journalism Online

One of the fascinating challenges about New Media is how to monetise content online. I mean, all too often these days, we expect the internet to give us "stuff" for free - which doesn't bode particularly well for the film industry if we're hoping to use the internet as a dynamic means of distribution that cuts out the middleman. Fortunately we're not alone. The publishing business in particular has been hard hit by people wanting to read their news - for free - online.



So it's good to see a report on DMW that a trio of high flying media executives have announced the launch of a Journalism Online, a new venture that aims to help monetize online news publishing. The venture plans to create a distributable system that will allow publishers to charge annual or monthly subscriptions to view their content, as well as a portal where consumers could pay a single fee to access content from multiple participating publications.

Says co-founder Steven Brill: "We believe we have developed a strategy and a set of services that will establish that model by restoring a stream of circulation revenue to supplement advertising revenue, while taking advantage of the savings to be gained from producing and delivering content electronically."

Watch this space

Spotify

Another music distribution example with possible relevance for film? - Spotify is a music distribution service that some people believe could spell doom for iTunes (www.apple.com/ itunes) or even for the CD. It launched last October and already has a million users.

Spotify works like this: users download a small application, which allows them to listen to any track from a total of thousands of albums at any time. The key difference between this and iTunes is that customers never actually own the music.



Spotify is the most talked-about start-up of the last year, not just because it provides a service that is much in demand, but also because of its interesting model for financing itself. Premium users, who pay £9.99 a month, do not see advertisements served up to them every 20 minutes. But you can enjoy the music for free if you are willing to watch the commercials.

In other words, the service is funded by both advertisements and subscription, which doesn't leave it solely dependent on one or the other method......

New Media Information

Want to know what countries like China, India, South Korea and even Jamaica are doing with New Media Production? I came across this Futures of Learning website, with all sorts of global projects and programmes for the Durban Film sector to benchmark itself against.

The convergence of consuming and producing digital media has been termed “prosuming” (Lim and Nekmat 2008). This practice has been democratized with the increasing availability of technology tools to (young) Indians from all socio-economic strata. While findings avenues for creative expression is at the heart of prosuming, the objectives differ depending on who is doing the prosuming. For more affluent Indian youth it is often tied to commercial ends that try to capitalize on the growing middle-class Indian youth market and its potential for technology and other companies. On the other hand, enabling poorer young Indians to produce digital media is seen as a way of giving them a voice to express their experiences and attitudes about their lives and neighborhoods.

Sounds like the kind of discussions we have here in SA, no?

First on Mars

First On Mars styles itself as "your personal guide to network tv on the web" What that really means is a website where you can find and download all your favourite US tv shows for free streaming / download. You build a "playlist" that matches your moods, or simply select your favourite networks and shows. And of course you can share your selections with friends.....



The site's not terribly user friendly, but just imagine this kind of thing as a repository for African product? With a pay-per-play button? Like iTunes for African films.....

Looking Back

A 1981 report on the possibility that one day we might read our newspapers (gasp!) on our computers.



I'm loving the tag line "It takes two hours to download the paper....."

New Media - Cellphones

In case you weren't completely convinced of the impact that cellphones will have in our lives - and in the way we promote and distribute KZN films in the not-too-distant future: according to a report from the GSMA, worldwide mobile phone connections have topped 4 billion, and are expected to reach 6 billion by 2013.Nearly 100 million of these connections are mobile broadband accounts.



The GSMA credited the integration of mobile into previously unconnected devices, and subscriber additions in emerging markets for the growth rate. And remember, according to the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Global Entertainment Media Outlook: 2008 - 2012.

“those that will see the most significant growth are those segments who take advantage of the opportunities in digital and mobile.”

New Media - Cellphones

In case you missed it, there are now seven mass media: print, music recordings, movies, radio, TV, computer-based internet and mobile phones. The mobile phone, although at number seven, has a huge advantage over the others and that is it can actually participate in all of them.

According to Anja Merret in the Mail and Guardian, you can

read a newspaper or book on one’s mobile, listen to music, watch movies, follow a radio program, watch TV or YouTube. And of course you can browse the internet.

Obviously, watching TV on a mobile is not (yet) the same as watching shows on television. The same applies to browsing the internet. But we're clearly getting there.

And where cellphones further stand out from the crowd is both their immediacy (we sleep next to them) and their total interactiveness (we create our own content and forward stuff on.) When marketers begin to understand the advantages and limitations of the humble cellphone and learn to play to its strengths, there's going to be a revolution in the way we receive audio-visual content. And that of course means more opportunities......

Durban Film Industry Facebook Group

As promised, we're widening the debate with a new Facebook Group - What must be put in place to create a viable Durban Film & TV industry?

Join up and start the discussion!

You Tube

YouTube attracted 100 million U.S. online video viewers in October, a month in which U.S. Internet users viewed 13.5 billion videos -- an increase of 45% from the previous year, according to a report from comScore Video Metrix.



Google's sites served nearly 5.4 billion videos to U.S. viewers in October, accounting for 40% of all videos viewed.

Fox Interactive Media, which includes MySpace, was second with 520 million videos (3.8%)

A total of more than 147 million American Internet users -- or 77% of the total U.S. Internet audience -- watched an average of 92 videos per viewer in October.

The trailer is for Durban-shot movie Three Cigarettes.

Gaming

Digital Media Wire covers the latest report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project which reveals that more than half (53%) of all American adults play video games, with younger adults playing the most (obviously??)and game play decreasing as age increases,

Eighty-one percent of young adults (ages 18-29) said they play video games, compared with 23% of those 65 or older. While younger adults are still more likely to play games, among older adults (65-plus) who play games, nearly a third play every day, compared to 20% of younger players.

Pew also found that age plays a role in determining which gaming platform players prefer. Overall, the U.S. adult gaming population prefers to play games on computers (73%), followed by consoles (53%), cell phones (35%) and portable gaming devices (25%). However, among young adults, game consoles are most popular (75%) followed by computers (68%).