It’s no “Arrested Development,” but Hulu is today announcing that it, too, is bringing TV programs back from the dead. (Coming back from the dead – hey, that sounds like a soap plot!). Hulu has now signed a deal with media production Prospect Park to air the previously canceled soap operas “All My Children” and “One Life to Live” on Hulu and Hulu Plus, where they’re air in addition to Apple’s iTunes.

Though clearly not the kind of programming that everyone enjoys, soap operas have a core audience of fans addicted to their cliff-hanging story lines, and often serve as the launch pad for actors who later go on to do higher quality work. In the past, soap opera alumni has included household names like Demi Moore, Julianne Moore, Meg Ryan, Kevin Bacon, Susan Sarandon, Eva Longoria, Ryan Phillippe, Teri Hatcher, Ray Liotta, Kelsey Grammer, Tommy Lee Jones, and dozens of others.

So knock ‘em if you must, but it’s a living. And a long-time part of the Hollywood machine.

That being said, with the variety of TV programming choices which have emerged over the years, and viewers’ changing tastes (let’s even go so far as to say “more sophisticated tastes,” shall we?), these types of programs have fallen in ratings, leading to “One Life to Live’s” final airing on ABC in January 2012 after 43+ years of being on TV. “All My Children” had wrapped the previous fall, after 41 years.

That’s, like, nearly twice as long as “The Simpsons,” to give you an idea.

Starting this spring, the shows will return with a new, now shorter 30-minute episode each weekday, with the exact launch to be announced at a later date.

Prospect Park, which runs its own online network called, very creatively, “The Online Network,” will also feature the shows, as will Apple’s iTunes.

The new agreement with Hulu will allow it to manage the ad sales for the two soaps, and package them for other integrated sponsorship opportunities. Hulu will also promote them across its free and subscription-based platform, Hulu and Hulu Plus.

The production company has been trying to revive these shows for some time now, after first licensing the content from ABC in mid-summer 2011. Prospect Park tried bringing them to cable TV, but those deals fell through due to funding and negotiations with the various unions involved in such a venture.

But it has now closed on a consulting agreement with Agnes Nixon, the two series’ creator, as well as deals with labor groups the Screen Actors Guild, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and the Directors Guild of America, in order to get the actors back, as well as another deal with the Writer’s Guild of America. And it has closed its financing with ABRY Partners, the company says.

Now the bigger question is whether or not the remaining fans, who may or may not reflect the demographic profile of your average Hulu or iTunes user, will return to find their shows on their new online homes.

Hulu recently announced its slate of original programming and exclusive series for 2013. The network has invested in a handful of originals, and has expanded its Exclusive Series lineup to 20 on-demand TV shows to date.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Here’s an interesting approach to Augmented Reality marketing: turn hats into Zombie heads.

The Zaphat (pronounced like Zap Hat, not Zafat) is a new line of fashion apparel where the logo on the accoutrement acts as the target for an iOS/Android app that uses Augmented Reality to transform the wearer into an avatar of their choice.

In other words, when you wear a special hat, people can look at you with an app and see a Zombie instead of your head and then take a picture of you.

This takes personal branding to a new level and is meant to be a fun experience and a way to create images for your social network.

As long as the hat is comfortable, stylish and competitively priced I find it hard to see what’s not to like here. Being able to make you look like a Zombie is icing on the cake.

The Zaphat (and accompanying app) all developed by Zappar, could easily be popular in youth markets, and is obviously expandable to different pieces of clothing, allowing for an entire doppelganger wardrobe to be associated with any clothing line. That’s an interesting idea.

It’s a novelty product right now but some could say much of fashion is novelty anyway. So really, this product could fit into the greater world of style with nary a dispute by the fanciful lords of fashion, don’t you think?

On a deeper level, as AR technology progresses toward the eyewear prototypes being developed by Google, Vuzix, Lumus and others, a real and alternate way to present yourself to others could become possible, even trendy.

Imagine an entire AR costume party, or an entire stage play occurring where the actors’ costumes are rendered by the eyewear of the audience. Concepts like the Zaphat could be a stepping stone in the path to a future state like this.

Or it could just be a cool hat.

It will be available in the coming months at Zappar.com and at other retail stores to be announced.

The Zappar app is available at iTunes and Google Play

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

“IBM wants it all and is aiming its guns on its last obstacle to industry control: Apple. Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry?” Steve Jobs asks us.

“No,” we cheer in unison.

“The entire information age?” He asks again, “Was George Orwell right about 1984?” Then the Apple CEO introduces us to the famous 1984 commercial directed by Ridley Scott that has since become a classic — some would say one of the most important commercials of all time.

“Cut!”

Welcome to the set of jOBS. Yes, you read that right.

jOBS. A movie about the life of Steve Jobs, starring Ashton Kutcher, Matthew Modine, and Dermot Mulroney. Directed by Joshua Michael Stern.

Welcome to HOLLYWOOD. Well, Pasadena.

The Star Treatment

Whether or not it feels “too soon” for Hollywood to be making a film about Steve Jobs, it’s happening. Not once, but twice. For those in the tech industry, this news is probably more likely to elicit cringes and eye-rolling than giddy excitement.

After all, Hollywood and Silicon Valley have never really been comfortable with each other — a difference in perspective which has only become more pronounced of late, with Paul Graham’s recent call to arms being a perfect example. So, when it comes to representing the life of a figure as iconic as Steve Jobs (whose legacy is equally as complicated as it is enduring), everything is amplified.

It was with these thoughts in mind that I flew down to Tinsel Town, where I was lucky enough to witness (and in a small way participate in) the filming of jOBS — otherwise known as “the one with Ashton Kutcher.”

For starters, just to clear up any confusion, there are two films about the Apple co-founder currently in the works. One is being made by Sony. The company recently bought the rights to Walter Isaacson’s extremely successful biography and is being adapted for the screen by Aaron Sorkin, the controversial but gifted screenwriter behind The Social Network, West Wing, and many more. No doubt the rights to the biography and recruiting Sorkin cost Sony a boatload, so they’ll be looking to add plenty of supplementary star power in the cast and the director’s chair.

No, not that one. jOBS is the project of a first-time producer, a guy named Mark Hulme who, at first glance, has none of the credentials one might expect from someone taking such an active interest in the life of one of the Pirates of Silicon Valley.

Hulme is a billionaire from Texas who founded The Five Star Institute — a publishing, marketing, communications, and conference production company. Hulme had few connections in Hollywood, but felt a cosmic connection to Jobs and wanted to be a part of recreating his life on screen. In April, he described his motivation for making the movie like this:

On the day that his retirement was announced – with no big scandal or disaster – I noticed that the buzz about his retirement consumed our creative and IT staff for the entire day. I had never seen anything like that reaction. That was the spark. We immediately began researching and writing the screen play.

While entertainment is inherently part of Five Star Institute’s DNA, neither the company nor jOBS’ producer had made a movie on this scale before. This is also screenwriter Matt Whiteley’s first film.

In spite of all odds, the film found some supporters in Hollywood, and led to the production company casting Ashton Kutcher to play Jobs himself. Dermot Mulroney, Lukas Haas and Matthew Modine have all signed on to play Mike Markkula, Daniel Kotke and John Sculley respectively — with Book of Mormon’s Josh Gad cast as Woz.

This is, of course, a double edged sword. We have first-time producer and screenwriter, and a lead who is better known for his comedic roles than anything else. Then there’s the goofy name. These things don’t exactly inspire confidence, right?

Well, regardless of how things turn out, you can be sure that those involved are taking this seriously — indie budget and first-timers or not.

TechCrunch Goes To The Movies

I arrived at the Pasadena Convention Center not having little idea what to expect. I had been told to dress in “business casual — khakis, button front shirts or polos in lighter color,” because cast and crew were filming a scene set at the ii Convention of 1983, where Steve Jobs introduced the famous “1984″ commercial to Apple employees.

Unfortunately, my training leans more to the editorial side of things, so I’ve had to lay off my costuming department and acting coach. Those in charge of casting sent me directly to wardrobe and make up, where I was given a hideous Hawaiian shirt, told to shave, and then joined the other 150 extras. Some wore 80′s-era Apple shirts, some wore suits, and nearly everyone sported a ridiculous hairstyle.

It was my first time as an extra — though I had made some appearances in Empson family home movies in the 80s and 90s — and was fairly wide-eyed throughout the process. I have since learned that seemingly everyone in LA has, at some point, been an extra in a movie.

It was remarkable to see a random collection of strangers be transformed into 80s geeks and Apple employees. It was all very surreal. And for those who haven’t had the opportunity to be an extra, I can tell you that it involves a lot of sitting (and/or standing) around and waiting. Eventually, we were herded onto the set, where we were greeted by open tables and a set that looked just what one would imagine that a 1980s convention center in Hawaii would like like. And since Apple had gone public in 1980 and minted scores of new millionnaires, we were all happy and enthusiastically applauding.

The crew tweaked lighting and sound, and we were soon joined by Steve Jobs qua Ashton Kutcher, and began a series of takes. Jobs was in the middle of his famous 1983 keynote and introduction of the 1984 commercial.

Kutcher, for his part, seemed to be taking the Brando acting approach to inhabiting the Jobsian character. Although he’s known for a great sense of humor and did some joking with everyone involved, he barked orders, saying that the podium needed to be changed as it didn’t look like the one Jobs spoke from in his keynote. Radar Online has written that Kutcher has been accused of being “mean” on the set over the course of filming, and that crew has had it explained to them just what’s going on.

I was able to catch up briefly with Kutcher during a break, who while displaying some Jobsian impatience, was kind enough to break character for a bit and talked about how he and screenwriter Whiteley had met with a host of people close to Jobs to get a better feel for what the guy was really like every day. We chatted briefly about some Apple history, a few of the startups he’s funded, and then he was back to character.

Gizmodo has poked fun at jOBS for its cast, as the actors don’t look anything like the people they’re portraying. I, too, had some reservations just looking at the movie from 5 miles up. But, admittedly, if you asked me to pick someone who both looked the part and in some small way might be able to understand the part, it’s probably not going to get much better than Kutcher. While the guy’s dramatic resume is short, he’s a name people recognize, his name has become a recurring one in Silicon Valley, if not a respected one.

Plus, if you’re never going to be taken completely seriously by those in Silicon Valley, it doesn’t get much better than getting to portray Steve Jobs.

Other than what I saw that day on set, details about how jOBS is approaching its subject are somewhat scant. In its synopsis, the film is described as “Dark, honest, and uncompromising, “JOBS” plunges into the depths of Steve Jobs’ character, uncovering his motivations, his gifts, his flaws, his failures, and his successes. An immensely private tale spanning four decades, “JOBS” is an intensely character-driven story that is as much a sweeping epic as it is a personal tale.”

With Matthew Modine playing Sculley, there’s a chance that the film could focus on the relationship between the two, which could make for an interesting story. Modine has said that he thinks Sculley’s firing of Jobs was one of the more important things to happen to Steve Jobs, and played a big part in his becoming the Jobs we know today.

There’s obviously a lot of pressure on Kutcher to take the role seriously, and he’s trying to convey an air of believability. As far as I know, he’s never taken the method acting approach, and so it remains to be seen how well that intensity is going to come off on screen. It could be awful, it could be spot on, but the more it involves all the characters and the relationship between Jobs and other Apple executives and the people close to him, the better.

There’s no official release date, though it did finish filming this week, and I’ve heard more than a few suggest that they’re targeting December. The earlier they can push the movie out before Sony and Sorkin’s movie hits, the better. (Although if Forbes is right and this is actually a page from the script, it may not matter.)

Now all we need is the post-1999, iMac and iPod-infused jOBS sequel to really nail the story. This movie has an uphill battle all the way, and it’s going to struggle against Sony’s eventual output — the IBM of the two. The story of Apple’s rise is epic, and I hope Kutcher is just the guy for the Job(s).

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Video search company Blinkx will be adding tens of thousands of clips from various feature films to its search engine, thanks to a deal with startup AnyClip. The agreement should bolster the amount of content Blinkx users will be able to access, as well as monetization for both companies and the studios who provide their videos to AnyClip.

AnyClip has more than 50,000 video clips from 12,000 different feature films, which come from studios such as Warner Bros, Universal Studios, Vivendi, First Look and Virgil Films. The startup takes those films, breaks them down into clips, and tags them with advanced metadata, allowing users to search based on the actors included in a scene, snippets of dialogue, and the like.

Through this distribution agreement, AnyClip will make those clips available for search as part of its Blinkx’s video platform. Blinkx now claims some 35 million hours of video content available through its site, and gets about 100 million uniques per month, according to comScore. The agreement is a rev-share deal, according to AnyClip CEO Oren Nauman, through which AnyClip and Blinkx will share advertising revenue with the studios that they’ve licensed the clips from.

AnyClip has been ramping up both licensing and distribution since getting a redesign and announcing its focus on the B2B market last year. Last fall it signed up Warner Bros for movies from the Batman and Harry Potter franchises, as well as Ocean’s Eleven, 300, Superman, and others. AnyClip also struck a distribution deal with Dailymotion to make those films available on its video portal.

While AnyClip was a bit slow to hit its stride, Nauman says the startup now is getting millions of video viewers daily. With both content and distribution growing, AnyClip is considering raising more funding. The startup, which is backed by Jerusalem Venture Partners, has 35 employees based in offices in New York City, Los Angeles and Jerusalem.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Editor’s Note: Jordan Kurzweil is Co-CEO of Independent Content, an agency that helps media companies launch new digital products and businesses. Prior to starting Independent Content, Jordan worked at AOL running original programming, and News Corp, where he helped bring its traditional brands to digital. You can follow him on Twitter @jordankurzweil.

I love movies. I love TV shows. I hate web videos.

They suck.

But let me qualify: An overwhelming number of professionally produced made-for-the-web videos are just not worth watching and barely hold a viewer’s attention for their miniscule run-time. Largely, they’re ill-conceived, poorly executed, poorly commercialized or downright boring.

Yes, there are a few individual standouts (maybe The Guild, some SNL Digital Shorts, La Blogotheque’s “Take Away Shows,” a few Funny or Die clips, and a never-ending line-up of “viral videos”), but you’d be hard-pressed to name a web program that has achieved irrefutable success — a sustained, engaged audience at scale, or more simply, a web series you watch religiously and recommend to others.

And the thing is, there’s no good reason this has to be the case. Web video programs DO NOT have to suck.

The industry has grown-up — the audiences are there, the ad dollars are waiting — and with advertisers and networks gathering for the Digital Content Upfronts Newfronts this week and next, we need to seriously define success in the world of made-for-the-web video, put into practice the mechanisms for creating those successes, and own up to our hits and misses.

Last week at the IAB’s Digital Video conference, a host of execs from media companies, ad agencies and technology companies tried to provide a definition of success and came up with two basic points of view:

1) Popularity – How many people have seen a video
2) Ad dollars – How much money is spent on ads in and around a video

Unremarkably, given industry-wide fear of failure, and consistently unproven ability, they missed a third, huge factor: Building real audience.

Since the advent of media, Audience with a capital “A” has been the core definition of success. Whether a newspaper, television show, film, band, book or blog, an engaged, active, repeat audience is what makes or breaks a media property. Audience — habitual, fervent, powered by word-of-mouth — builds value and drives all other successes: Ad dollars, box office sales, subscriptions, downloads, etc.

This is why Ted Sarandos at Netflix is investing so heavily in original programming (as is Hulu) with a focus on building “strung out” audiences, and why web businesses like Machinima are raising capital on valuations in the hundreds of millions of dollars. In the era of video everywhere, large audiences of hooked viewers for extended periods of time equates to success. Nothing new.

Taking an honest look at original web videos, most, if not all, have failed to build real audiences, and none have inspired the sense of awareness, fandom (or even bubbling fervor) that develops around an even mildly successful television show.

Not Battleground.
Not Lilyhammer.
Not ClevverStyle.
Not Failure Club.
Not The Gillmore Gang. (Sorry TechCrunch)

But the thing is — and I never would have said this a few years ago — web originals can build Audiences. Here’s how.

Step one, promotion.

The web has proven it can drive viewership at scale, i.e. we can direct large audiences to a single piece of content. The web portals, iTunes, and ad agencies do this everyday via homepage promotions, media buys, content discovery widgets, social media campaigns and so on. This type of initial burst of promotion drives sampling, or as TV folk call it, tune in. We can, and should refine the use of these tools and use them in a coordinated and even bigger way along with offline promotion to drive eyeballs to programming.

Step two, make it f*cking great.

Easy to say, and hardest to do, but when viewers arrive, we need to entertain and provide immediate value. We need to make great content. To date, as I said at the top, we have failed as an industry to do this (Note: I am partly to blame. As the GM of FOX.com and then the head of original programming at AOL I have been responsible for the production of terabytes of original web videos — some good, a great many mediocre, but none building repeat audience).

There are a host of factors that have contributed to the problem — low budgets, short lead times, infinitesimal audience attention span and over commercialization forced by the industry’s desperation for ad dollars and instantaneous results — a self-fulfilling generator of poor quality. I have been in the meetings, and seen it all first-hand, and the biggest structural problem has been an endemic lack of focus and commitment to creative product.

What makes great content?

People and focus. Talented people executing great ideas that connect with audiences. Read Warren Littlefield’s oral history of Friends in this month’s Vanity Fair. It is all about talented people – from the show creators and writers, to the actors, to studio executives pushing and machinating to execute an idea that had been pitched around Hollywood by a number of different producers ad infinitum. But NBC and Bright/Kauffman/Crane made it a hit. What’s the primary difference between Battle Ground on Hulu and Veep on HBO?

Details. The actual creative execution of the concept.

Starting at the beginning of the creative/pitch process, established producers need to cut the crap, and the cheap tricks, and bring their A-level ideas, talents and (perhaps most importantly) focus to the digital game. Some are starting, but for too long, the web has been treated as a creative dumping ground, a home for regurgitated pitches that didn’t get bought by studios, networks and cable nets (and guess what kids, there’s generally a reason!), and producers have considered digital an ancillary business that naturally doesn’t get as much of their time and focus compared to higher paying TV and film projects. But, there’s a wave of new digital native creators coming who don’t differentiate between viewing platforms, and they are going to eat your lunch if you don’t wake-up.

Digital distributors and networks (Netflix, Hulu, AOL, Yahoo!, Amazon) — anyone buying original programming — need to hire creative executives, people with the right instincts, taste and knowledge of their intended audiences to help shape, improve and market programming. There is a reason these jobs exist at television networks, production companies and studios — great creative executives, like book editors, make content better by both pushing and protecting creators, providing audience insight and enabling great work.

Look at the careers of David Nevins at Showtime (and Imagine), Sheila Nevins at HBO (no relation), Kevin Reilly at FOX and FX, and you will see the rise in popularity and hit-making capabilities of those networks – and to a person they and their staffs have provided one very important thing:

Runway. Whether driven by the breakneck pace engendered by the dotcom “ship and scale” mentality, or the immediate and fickle expectations of The Street or advertisers, the digital content industry has never understood or embraced the basic idea that creative endeavors need the time, space and money to develop. Coming up with the right concept, writing the great script, CASTING the right talent, hiring the most appropriate director — all take trial, error, revision, time and money. Oh, and keep the advertisers out of it until it’s done and ready for them. Consensus is no way to produce anything actually creative.

Step 3, product.

We need to make it easy for people to come back to content they like. This is our biggest challenge, given the byzantine and organic structure of the Internet and services and consumer expectations we have created on top of it. We need to look at ways of solving this as both distributors as well as producers, considering everything from navigation and usability, marketing tactics, technology and platform functionality, and even the form and format of the content. Once the fish bites, we need to set the hook.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Following last month’s news of Netflix’s second original scripted series, “Orange Is the New Black,” Netflix has confirmed that yet another original show, a horror series called “Hemlock Grove,” will begin airing on its streaming service in early 2013.

Netflix has exclusive rights to the 13-episode series, which tells the tale of a young girl’s murder set in a ravaged Pennsylvania steel town, and whose killer could be any one of several odd and frightening people…or creatures.

The show’s possible bad guys include a Gypsy kid who may be a werewolf, an escapee from a nearby biotech facility, and, perhaps the most frightening of all, the arrogant son whose family ran the steel mill business and now controls the town. Sounds like good stuff, if you’re into that gothic mystery genre, I suppose.

“Hemlock Grove,” which is based on a novel by Brian McGreevy, stars Famke Janssen and Bill Skarsgard and is being produced by Gaumont International Television. Eli Roth, who performed in “Inglourious Basterds” and created the “Hostel” franchise (yeah…thanks for that), is credited as both the director and exec producer on the new series.

Also exec producing the series are the book’s author McGreevy, Lee Shipman, Eric Newman (“The last Exorcism,” “Dawn of the Dead,” “Children of Men”) and Michael Connolly (“How to Train Your Dragon,” “Battlestar Gallatica”).

It’s notable that in terms of the executive producers at least, if not the actors, Netflix’s shows are not coming from newcomers and unknowns, but rather those who have previous experience in the industry. These are not “wannabes,” so to speak, they’re just among the first to bet big on this disruptive, over-the-top, streaming format for delivering a new way to watch television.

Netflix has been moving rapidly to expand into content creation, making deals which have also included the above-mentioned “Orange is the New Black,” the Steven Van Zandt vehicle “Lilyhammer,” as well as new episodes of “Arrested Development,” and an adaptation of the British miniseries “House of Cards,” which is set to arrive in the U.S. and Canada by late 2012. Rumors have been circling, too, that Netflix may pick up the recently cancelled sci-fi show from Fox “Terra Nova,” and today word comes that it’s also eying ABC’s “The River,” also facing cancellation.

By the middle of 2013, the company confirms it will have at least five original shows available for streaming.

Network TV is safe despite Netflix’s moves (at least for now), since it reaches a broad audience, including those who don’t pay for cable, but who rely on over-the-air transmission. However, Netflix has the potential to shake up the cable industry, especially premium cable TV, if the company decides to take it head on…and doesn’t end up getting into bed with them instead. While today, potential premium cable customers are frustrated with their inability to subscribe to the quality programs on pay cable channels via a la carte options (see, for example, MG’s ongoing complaints regarding HBO’s lockdown on “Game of Thrones”), it’s possible that in the not-so-distant future we’ll have a wide variety of quality TV found outside of premium cable to choose from.

And by quality, of course, I mean critically acclaimed, adult-targeted programming – the shows that couldn’t make it on ABC, NBC or CBS where the entire American TV-viewing audience is the demographic they hope to attract. There’s a reason why harmless, but brain-rotting reality competitions and laugh-tracked filled sitcoms starring attractive 20-year olds are among the country’s top shows in Nielsen ratings – they don’t offend anyone.

Except those viewers who expect more from the TV format, of course.

To compete with what will hopefully be a growing audience who ditches HBO (or Showtime, Cinemax, etc.) for Netflix’s streaming service in the coming months, real battles will begin: for actors, for scripts, for directors and producers, and of course, for viewers. Netflix may even be able to force the pay channels’ hand in the matter, if enough of the audience resorts to pirating their content, while paying for Netflix. It may be too late for today’s “Game of Thrones,” but by the time another show of that caliber rolls around, it might not be on cable.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

We are less than ten days into 2012, but here is a prediction that is easy to make: We are going to see a lot of original Web TV shows announced this year with big stars.

It’s already happening. Tom Hanks is making a cartoon TV series for Yahoo. Steven Van Zandt is starring in a Web-original drama on Netflix. House of Cards, starring Kevin Spacey, will also appear on Netflix, along with other original shows (it is also resurrecting Arrested Development for the Web audience). Yahoo is partnering with ABC News for Web video, and licensing original comedy as well.

And that’s just Yahoo and Netflix. YouTube is spending $100 million on original programming. And Hulu has dabbled with original programming.

Making TV shows for the web is nothing new. What is new is the level of commitment in terms of dollars and star power being thrown at Web video. Netflix viewers spend 10 hours a month watching streaming video, quadruple the time spent on YouTube or Hulu. Part of that is because Netflix shows feature-length movies, but part of it also is the quality of those movies and the familiarity of the actors who star in them.

Getting Tom Hanks to debut his animated series Electric City on Yahoo is a bold (and, no doubt, expensive) statement that Web video is entering a new phase. Web TV shows no longer have to be second-class citizens. Yahoo, Netflix, YouTube, and maybe even Hulu will increasingly compete for the best shows with cable channels. Could the next Mad Men be a Web TV series?

If the Web wants to chip away at the 130 hours a month people spend watching traditional TV, it will have to go beyond the experimental phase and start producing as many high-quality TV shows as cable and broadcast TV. Okay, maybe not that many. It depends what is your definition of “high-quality,” but in any given season there are only a couple dozen TV shows that count.

Netflix and Yahoo don’t need a full roster of 24/7 programming to compete with TV, but they do need more than one or two shows each. These high-profile shows are anchor properties, like HBO’s Boardwalk Empire or Game of Thrones. They only need a few hits to get people into the habit of watching on the Web, and then they can feed them all their other video.

It’s a risky strategy that depends on hits. But TV has always been a hits-driven business. Online will be no different, except that word of mouth (good or bad) travels instantly through social networks. We’ll know whether these shows can become hits much faster than if they were on regular TV.

Photo credit: Getty

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

It’s that time of year again, when everyone puts out their year in review lists. Twitter does this on a rolling basis with multiple lists on its Year in Review page, which includes notable people who joined Twitter in 2011 (Charlie Sheen, Sean Parker, and Howard Stern) and its just-added lists of hot topics. The hot topics are broken into categories such as Movies (Thor is No.1, really?), Actors (Charlie Sheen), World News (Mubarak’s resignation, Raid on Osama bin Laden), and hashtags.

The hashtags are the most interesting part of the list. They reflect a mixture of the topics that spiked in realtime across the world (#egypt, #jan25, #japan), enduring pop culture memes (Charlie Sheen’s #tigerblood), as well as quirky Twitter-only memes (#threewordstoliveby).

Here are the top hashtags of the year, according to Twitter:

1. egypt
2. tigerblood
3. threewordstoliveby
4. idontunderstandwhy
5. japan
6. improudtosay
7. superbowl
8. jan25

Compare these to the top searches of the year on Yahoo. You won’t find Kim Kardashian, Lindsay Lohan, or American Idol on the Twitter lists. Is that because Twitter users are more sophisticated, or is it an indication that Twitter is not yet as mainstream as search?

Top 10 Searches

1. iPhone
2. Casey Anthony
3. Kim Kardashian
4. Katy Perry
5. Jennifer Lopez
6. Lindsay Lohan
7. “American Idol”
8. Jennifer Aniston
9. Japan Earthquake
10. Osama bin Laden

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Move over, Chronicles of Narnia, there’s a new dreamworld of magic in town. That’s right. Andrew Fischer, CEO of Colorado-based marketing company NURV, has recruited a stellar cast of Meme-lebrities, including Antoine Dodson of Hide Yo Wife, Hide Yo Kids fame, Double Rainbow videographer Paul Vasquez, Brian Collins (the “Boom goes the dynamite” kid), and “Numa Numa” vocalist Gary Brolsma, for a feature-length film entitled “The Chronicles of Rick Roll”.

The title, as you probably know, is derived from the meme to rule them all: the music video for Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”, which became the source of a viral prank, called “Rick Rolling”. Thanks to Rick Rolling, never again will you be able to say to your friend, “hey, you should check out this amazing video of Steve Jobs singing karaoke,” without being suspected of collusion with Rick Astley.

Of course, with a title like this, it would only be fitting if the film itself were one large prank. However, it seems that Fischer is serious. Though he hasn’t yet secured distribution, there is a website, a script, and apparently the actors will be paid. According to a press release, Antoine Dodson has actually seen the script. His response: “They sent me like a piece of the script and I read it and I was like, oh my god, this is going to be so epic”.

Will it be a Shakespearean tragedy? A coming of age tale? Will “Sad Keanu” find redemption? Based on the trailer, it’s hard to imagine how the plot will play out, but it seems very unlikely that this will be a documentary in which the YouTube sensations all have frank discussions about why they are famous. But, needless to say, I’m intrigued. Very intrigued.

The Web has created a vibrant culture of memes, many of which have already migrated to other media, so it was only a matter of time before a “best of” hit the big screen. And, to be honest, I’m glad the gathering is taking place there rather than in a reality show format — or on the Island of Dr. Moreau.

Regardless of how we feel about web celebrities, it’s important to remember that it’s only a matter of time before Keyboard Cat plays us all out.

Check out the trailer below and let us know if you would see this movie.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Amazon has just released yet another new commercial for the Kindle, which again takes aim at its major competitor, the iPad. The commercial includes the fact that Amazon now has over 800,000 titles in the Kindle book store, and like past commercials, highlights the difficulty many iPad users face when reading on the tablet in direct sunlight. The Kindle, on the other hand, is perfectly visible in direct sunlight. The commercial even includes a tagline, “easy to read in bright sunlight” and throws in a mention of its long battery life.

One thing that is noticeable in the commercial is that all of the actors appear to be in their twenties and thirties, which shows that Amazon is clearly trying to target a younger demographic in the spot. And the tagline “The Book Lives On,” appears to be a new one.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has repeatedly stated that the iPad is in a different product category than the Kindle, and aren’t a threat to the company’s flagship product. But Amazon’s Kindle commercials continue to attack the iPad for its sunlight issue. Hmm.

It’s still unclear how many Kindles Amazon has actually sold because the company is notoriously cagey about releasing these stats. We do know, however, that sales of third-generation Kindles are in the millions.

For anyone who is interested, the song in the commercial is “Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk,” by the New Pornographers.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch