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Posts tagged as “Technology and Art”

Financial Creativity

Financial Creativity

The concept of “free Internet” is probably one of the biggest debates of this century, whether on the net-neutrality front or a more direct access to content without ridiculous fees.

You may have noticed at the bottom of my posts a new little button: Flattr.
As previously mentioned, this is to bring the idea of social micro-donations forward, especially within a creative context and towards creative people.
The concept of Flattr is simple.
You set a monthly donation limit, say $15, that you put on Flattr.
Then you go about your online life. Browsing, clicking, reading, viewing, listening.
If you encounter compelling/insightful/interesting/cool content, you click on the Flattr button on that post/site (equivalent to “liking” something).
At the end of the month, the donation is split between all the Flattr content you selected. If you clicked on 10, they would get $1.50 each; 100 is $0.15. You get the idea. Clicking a Flattr button never increases the fee/donation you’re paying, it merely splits it. Sharing the love.
Sadly, there is not a true 100% thru-rate in terms of incoming donation. Meaning if you’re the recipient of said donations, you only get 90%.
To be honest, those 10% fees are still lower than any other content distributor out there.

If we take the obvious example of music, last year, TuneCore issued a guide online on “13 different ways to make money from your songs.” The company has arrangements with online digital music retailers (Amazon MP3, Napster, iTunes, etc.). Here is the document:

Interestingly, they do not specifically list fees for sales on, say, iTunes. Only royalties and the like.
It turns out that for a single song price of $0.99, $0.34 goes to Apple with 12% of the leftover wholesale markup going to the artist (in this case $0.10).
In other words, nearly 35% of the price you pay on iTunes goes to Apple with barely a tent of it going to the artist.
For a self-released MP3 download on iTunes, you can get up to $0.68, which is a huge improvement, however there are many, better options out there if you are going to self-release online.

A study by Professor Peter DiCola from Northwestern showed last month that only 6% of the “average share of music income” of musicians comes from sound recordings.
Here’s the fancy graphic:

Of course this is merely based on non-major record artists (since we are here talking about an independent aspect to creativity). Bands may make most of their money via tours and merchandising, but if a direct service of customer-to-content exists, the financial incentive to self-publish becomes greater.
One may say that name recognition is another factor on why “small-time” artists end up going through TuneCore and the like to “self-publish.” Yet, it is doubtful that iTunes gives any publicity leg-up to unknown bands.
YouTube isn’t even better with its sponsors and revenue dependent on views and clicks.
Ultimately, the services offered for small artists to monetize their content are rarely worthwhile.

Which brings us back to Flattr.
This entire post may seem like either some kind of ad for Flattr or a way to desperately monetize the blog.
It is neither.
For one thing, I don’t expect to make any money from Flattr. I assume only a fraction of people reading this (if any) is going to visit the Flattr website, let alone register, put money in and click back through my blog. I’ll be publishing any results (or lack thereof) in the coming months. The system is also very European-oriented (the default currency currently used is the Euro, not the Dollar).
More importantly though, I’ve been hosting on my own dime this pretty big website, with no ads, for almost five years now. Clearly if I wanted to monetize the site I would have done so a long time ago.

I simply really like the concept of Flattr. Beyond the social aspect given to micro-financing, it is, in my mind, a way of reinventing the way any creativity can be rewarded online.
In addition to the possibility of offering a direct monetization of creative content, such a social micro-donation service allows virtually anything to be financially helped. Anything can be “Flattrd” (especially through browser extensions).
Even a funny tweet, interesting video, or cool picture.

Unsurprisingly, the European-bent to the company is due to its founder, Peter Sunde (aka brokep) from Finland.
In case you’re not familiar with him, Peter Sunde is one of the co-founders of the notorious Pirate Bay website (one of the biggest BitTorrent trackers in existence).
[Speaking of, I definitely recommend the new documentary “TPB.AFK” about The Pirate Bay. Despite the name, the focus is not on the website itself, rather the three men behind it and their struggles with the copyright/judicial system. Big studios are clearly losing billions based on illegal downloads. Right?
Tying back to this theme, Flattr is also mentioned in the movie.]

Microloans have already changed the world. Micro-donations have the potential to change the way we interact with what we consume online, from articles to media.
This is a social financial experiment in creativity.
Although Flattr may not take-off in the States, I do believe in the idea behind the company.
This is not about what it does right now; it is about what it can do.
Viewers, readers, listeners able to directly reward and interact, one-on-one, with creators of the content they find most compelling, entertaining, engaging.

Isn’t that what a free Internet really is about?

Is Netflix’s original programming strategy a game-changer?

Is Netflix’s original programming strategy a game-changer?

By now you’ve probably heard the news: Netflix has decided to enter the original programming world. Not only that, but the king of online movie distribution is doing it through a $100-million deal, scoring House of Cards (one of the most sought-out cable pilots) with a 2-season/24-episode order.
Boom.

It’s certainly impressive, and pretty much unheard of, but why can this move be considered a game-changer?

First, the fact that Netflix is doing original programming is, by itself, a major decision, and dare I say a major shake-up in the peaceful realm of the television industry.
An outside entity getting on TV’s turf by pulling the rug out from their feet? They’re a distribution outlet, not a content developer. Surely this is tantamount to iTunes making shows of their own, right?
Well the truth is that we’ve now moved beyond all of that.
Do you remember The Outer Limits‘ opening credits? “We control the horizontal and the vertical.”
I could write a thousand pages describing how “the Internet” or “YouTube” or “the writers’ strike” changed the way “television” is “made,” but the bottom line is that the standard TV business model is slowly eroding away. We’re now angling towards an endless array of verticals and horizontals. The latest example being Comcast buying up NBC/Universal. The “input” and “output” tubes are starting to fuse themselves together into an endless loop.
Scary, huh?
So we have Netflix, which controls 61% of movie streaming and is literally getting a dedicated button on your remote control, who is now moving beyond its distribution model to become a content creator–nay, a premium content creator and provider.
I’d say that’s one major step towards the future of television.

Now there’s also the problem of the content itself. Netflix went with House of Cards; in other words, this is a very high-profile cable drama.
The message is clear: You don’t have to be HBO to provide epic premium content.
It’s not only about making original content, it’s about making original premium content that can rival cable.
Is cable really in competition with online distribution outlets?
That’s still up to debate, although Netflix clearly thinks so.
“But they don’t have development executive” you say. Well that may be true, but I’m still waiting to see Netflix’s exec pyramid to validate that statement. They’ll probably create a dedicated department in the next few weeks.
Regardless, seeing as this is their first original venture, and the way they acquired the project, I’m willing to bet that they’re more than willing to give some artistic freedom.
After all, we’re not talking about a project by unknowns here. House of Cards is a respected foreign property drama and has established auspices (Fincher/Spacey). Plus we have MRC, which has a decent track record, but more importantly everything to prove. It’s probable that they’ll be the ones more involved in the creative process.
And will House of Cards be eligible for an Emmy?

Finally, we have the deal itself. A two-season order is nowadays virtually unheard of.
As Nellie Andreeva pointed out in her article:

AMC went straight to series on The Walking Dead but with a modest six-episode order. Rome and Fox’s CGI extravaganza Terra Nova started off with 13-episode orders. Starz, which has been going straight-to-series with its dramas, ordered 10 episodes of Camelot and 8 of Boss.

Although still unknown, the distribution model of these 24 episodes will probably be by itself somewhat of a revolution (at least for that type of content).
Will it be VOD-only? Will DVDs be mailed out? How about the marketing campaign?
Everything needs to be defined. Or rather redefined, since this is after all a TV series we’re talking about.
Change is afoot.
The fact that Netflix spent $100 million to acquire the project is them basically thumbing their nose at cable.
Had AMC or HBO acquired the project, it certainly would have kept its appeal, but beyond its artistic value, the fact that Netflix is developing it is much more alluring.
House of Cards is now a big fish in a small pond–which is about to get enormous.

Of course, at the end of the day (or rather months to come), all of this might end up being a catastrophic failure. Nobody watches the show and millions have been spent for nothing.
I personally believe though that it’s going to work out on all fronts.
And if anything, this will at least usher in a new era; that of premium original content not originating from the standard black box, but from an entirely different mode of distribution.
Whether that’s a good or bad thing remains to be seen.

One final question remains: Will House of Cards be eligible for an Emmy?

The iPad: Where’s the objectivity?

The iPad: Where’s the objectivity?

I came across an article by New York Times’ David Pogue about the polarizing aspect of the iPad.
He writes:

The haters tend to be techies; the fans tend to be regular people.
Therefore, no single write-up can serve both readerships adequately. There’s but one solution: Write separate reviews for these two audiences.
Read the first one if you’re a techie. (How do you know? Take this simple test. Do you use BitTorrent? Do you run Linux? Do you have more e-mail addresses than pants? You’re a techie.)
Read the second review if you’re anyone else.

Besides the fact that this article is stuck in a 1999 cliché of what a “techie” is, my problem with this is Pogue gives a false sense of objectivity (showing both sides of the coin).
The thing is, not only is the so-called “anti” review comprised of just a basic spec list, but the whole article is overwhelmingly biased towards the iPad.
The “pro” review (three times the size of its counterpart), praises the same aspects of the tablet that, well, everyone else seems to praise (regardless of if they’re actually good/relevant/comparable, or not).

As I was reading through the review, it became clear that the author was enamored with the device – and so was the rest of the press corps.
Save for those few “techie” websites, every news outlet raves about the iPad, totally disregarding its many flaws.
Everyone is saying how “revolutionary” is is. And both Newsweek and Time have made iPad their covers.

The problem is that they’re buying their own hype.

Apple declares the product “magical”, and then on the other end the press emphasizes it to the point where you don’t know if some massive brainwash has occurred.

It’s as if people are more than happy to jump on the Apple bandwagon instead of taking a step back, and provide reasonable critical thinking.

The press is duping the public in thinking that a severely limited $500 tablet is better than a versatile $300 computer.
We all know people love to touch their stuff, but come on.
You can’t throw away all your other devices (laptop, home-computer, phone), and just use the iPad (that kinda looks like a clunky iPhoto Frame).

Apple knows their niche and exploited it to the max.

Wall Street Journal‘s Walter Mossberg says:

After spending hours and hours with it, I believe this beautiful new touch-screen device from Apple has the potential to change portable computing profoundly, and to challenge the primacy of the laptop.

If I understand this right, a tablet with a 4:3 screen and the same processor as my phone will replace my computer that has ten times the specs and power.
I’m sorry but intuitiveness is not the only thing that should make or break a technological device. Especially one that is positioning itself as a laptop-killer.

Going back to the New York Times article:

The iPad’s killer app, though, is killer apps. Apple says that 150,000 existing iPhone apps run on the iPad.

How are phone apps working on a fake laptop supposed to be a “killer app”?
For that matter, how is a laptop having apps anything new?
Ever heard of something called “software”? You know that your netbook can run programs too, right?
And they’re not limited by the iTunes store.
I can understand why having exclusive apps for the iPhone that no other phone can do might be interesting, but if your laptop-killer can’t even run laptop-level apps (Photoshop?) , you’ve got a problem.

And no, it can’t handle Adobe Flash.
What’s the reasoning? Steve Jobs says it’s “buggy.”
Nice personal vendetta.
Again, I can understand why the iPod Touch might not be able to handle Flash, especially seeing that web-surfing is not its primary component.
On the other hand, the iPad is marketed as a device made for web-surfing. And yet it can’t fully access it.
Steve Jobs called the iPad “the best web experience you’ve ever had,” though why shell out $500+ to only access a tenth of web content?

There’s also no multitasking, or more specifically app concurrency.
This is not hyped to be a one-app device, and yet you cannot run two apps at the same time (despite the size and speed).

Regarding its e-book capabilities, and the fact that the iPad is not an e-Reader, we’ve already covered that part in full detail.
Though I do get annoyed when the iPad’s e-reading function is praised for details like:

When you turn a page, the animated page edge actually follows your finger’s position and speed as it curls, just like a paper page.

I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that an animation of a page turning was more important than the actual book page.
When you read a book, do you spend much time looking at how cool the page turning is, or more time reading the actual thing?

This ode to the iPad has even reached television, with Modern Family dedicating this week an episode to the device.
I don’t know what is scarier: the fact that an entire storyline was crafted around the iPad, or that Apple didn’t have to pay for it.

Time Magazine’s review does have an interesting point towards its very end:

The iPad shifts the emphasis from creating content to merely absorbing and manipulating it. It mutes you, turns you back into a passive consumer of other people’s masterpieces. In that sense, it’s a step backward.

The iPad is a media consumption device, but it’s too damn limited.

Which brings me to Final Draft.
You’ve probably heard by now that the company is developing an app for the iPad.
The Final Draft app will primarily be designed to make small edits here and there, but I get the feeling that, even with a great screenwriting app, the iPad isn’t comfy enough for script edits.
Typing pages of text on a virtual keyboard? You must be joking. You can’t even write on your lap.
Except for short e-mails or messages, not much will be able to be done it feels like.
I’m still waiting to see how this one plays out though.

I think Engadget‘s Ross Miller nailed it when he described the iPad as:

A jack of some trades, a master of none.

The press felt bummed out they didn’t call the iPod or the iPhone as the game-changer they were, so this time around they’re all too keen to declare the iPad as the greatest gadget that ever was.
I’m not saying the iPad will bomb (it probably won’t), I’m just expecting a little more neutrality from a medium that is supposed to be unbiased and shouldn’t get “all tingly inside” when reporting about a flawed device.

And as for why ABC and CBS putting their TV shows on the iPad for free is a dangerous thing, that’s a story for another time.