Posted By gsteen - January 10, 2012
New media platforms demand new formats for content:
The printing press gave rise to the widespread distribution of books and newspapers. Radio bred panel discussions and radio dramas. The television encouraged the growth of half-hour video entertainment in a world previously dominated by feature-length films.
The most recent iteration of this is tablets and smartphones encouraging short-form entertainment such as web video and podcasts.
The Casualization of Content
One of the hallmarks of mobile
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Posted By sspearman - July 19, 2011
"Napster works because people who love music share and participate."
Ten years later Shawn Fanning's quote about Napster still holds true. People are passionate about music, and they are passionate about services that let them share and participate in the music discovery process. But ten years later, Napster is no longer the service that captures the music world's attention. A new service, Spotify, seems poised to become the darling of music
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Posted By eknab - July 14, 2011
After seemingly endless negotiations with U.S. record labels, ad-supported music service Spotify has finally launched stateside. The service’s competitors include Rdio, MOG, iTunes and new cloud music services from Amazon and Google. Spotify has a freemium pricing model: users can listen for free on their desktops and laptops in an ad-laden music browser similar to iTunes. At $4.99 people can have ads removed, and at $9.99 users gain access to
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Posted By eknab - July 13, 2011
Most people think augmented reality, or AR, is a type of mobile app that adds a digital layer to the real world. That isn't entirely true. It's more than visual, more than mobile and has more marketing potential than you may have realized.
The Status Quo of Augmented Reality
The stereotypical implementation of augmented reality involves a smartphone and an app. Users of such platforms typically open up the app, which turns
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Posted By Ivy Chang - July 12, 2011
With over 140,000 members within a month of launch, Turntable.fm is taking its virtual concert hall to New York for a live dance party. The community at New Work City is hosting a live Turntable.fm event which will feature five DJ’s spinning their tracks on a stage similar to those in the virtual rooms. While avatars in the virtual rooms bob their heads to vote a song “awesome”
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Posted By sspearman - July 7, 2011
About a month ago, Turntable.fm launched to a lot of buzz within the Silicon Valley community and managed to rack up 140,000 members within a month of launch. The music listening site lets users create social music listening chatrooms with strangers and friends. People can either choose to be a DJ, streaming their hand-selected music for the room to listen to, or they can be a listener and just hang
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Posted By eknab - July 6, 2011
A number of private, Internet-based companies have been filing for initial public offerings (IPO) this year. Popular names such as Groupon, Pandora, LinkedIn and prominent Chinese social networking website Renren have all taken the leap. Even LivingSocial is rumored to be looking into filing for an IPO. The company to most recently join the ranks is Zynga, which has been cited as the most valuable U.S. game company. Now that
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Posted By eknab - July 5, 2011
Pringles is appealing to music lovers by turning their smartphones into guitars and drum kits. The Pringles Crunch Band mobile app mimics these instruments while the Pringles packaging itself can be turned into an amplifier by plugging a stereo cord into the phone. Additional instruments such as bass guitar and “the Pringleshaker” can be unlocked by purchasing more cans of Pringles and scanning their barcodes.
Implications: Pringles is adding value to
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Posted By eknab - June 8, 2011
With sites such as DamnYouAutocorrect.com it is no secret that predictive text can lead to some shocking and/or horrifying scenarios. Predictive analysis, on a more helpful note, can allow users and brands to take advantage of information mining or keep tabs on emerging media content that is soon to be a big hit. Brands can use this information to stay on the forefront of emerging trends in their industries.
Sites such
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Posted By eknab - June 6, 2011
The Kaiser Chiefs is a band from Leeds that is showcasing the future of f-commerce, or commerce-enabled Facebook initiatives, with the June 3rd launch of their "The Future is Medieval" album. Fans can visit the band's Facebook page to create their own list of 10 tracks out of the 20 tracks on the album, complete with their own cover art. After purchasing and downloading the content, the customized album becomes
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