Category: Media

The Dutch television guide Veronica Magazine is now available for the iPhone.

The International Olympic Comitee, the IOC, will broadcast its own images of the Olympics in Beijing via YouTube. In countries where the television rights haven't been sold and in countries where those rights haven't been sold exclusively, the IOC will takeover the role of broadcaster. The games' organization won't have to make deals with television broadcasting companies because it'll place the images directly on the internet. No full sports competitions will be offered, but solely summaries and highlights. Inhabitants of 77 countries (such as Afghanistan and Ethiopia, but also Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Thailand) will profit from this move.

PC Zapper groups together all watched videostreams of broadcasting companies, of Dutch video sharing sites or other video sources using Dutchcharts (Dutch). This way a Top 30 can be created. Videos can be clicked on and watched immediately.

With CBSeyemobile.com from the American broadcasting company CBS users can upload their photos and videos directly from their mobile phone.

From now on, movies in America can be bought both as a direct download and on DVD. To start with, all the movies of the bigger companies (20th Century Fox, Walt Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios, Sony Pictures and the slightly smaller Lionsgate, Image Entertainment and First Look Studios) will be made available on iTunes.

The Dutch public broadcaster has launched two chatbots: the Missed Broadcast chatbot and the Broadcast Guide chatbot. By adding uitzendinggemistbot@omroep.nl and zoomerbot@omroep.nl respectively the media consumer can see what is on TV is or watch programs that have previously been broadcast.

In the new video game Grand Theft Auto IV players can buy MP3s of music that can be heard on the radio stations in the game.

With AppleTV, a small device placed near the TV that makes a wireless connection to the internet, the user can now directly download a movie without even getting up from the couch. An interface appears which allows the user to directly select movies. Prices are $2.99 for a normal movie, $3.99 for a new movie, and a dollar extra for HD format. Take a guided tour here. (ap).

Thus personal media brands further evolve. Now in HD format, soon in life size screens that cover whole walls. Now AppleTV only gives access to entertainment, soon we will pay a lot more for interactive content. The experience economy then will really come to life, and AppleTV can coach us in making selections out of all these possibilities.

Developing personal media brand Joost starts with live streams. Starting next week, watchers anywhere in the world can watch the NCAA basketball championships live (em, Dutch). Thus personal media brands slowly evolve. Live or not live, this type of brands takes care of entertainment on the couch after a day of hard work. Be it passive, a little active, or very active: we don’t have to leave the house any longer. Once Joost gets mass-accessibility on TV, broadcasters will have a lot to worry about.

MiraWorldTV brings all TV streams together (al). At this point in time the most important thing is to bring everything together. In other words, for personal media brands to be: bring all games, all videos, all live-video together. Then it becomes critical to make very personal selections, start them, and bill them. On demand. Then brands really start adding value to the lives of consumers.

Panasonic from now on produces its TV’s under brand name ‘VIERA’. The plasma top line (the VIERA Z850), which will be on the market soon, as a default has an internet connection. YouTube and Picassa will directly be revealed (av, Dutch). And thus every screen evolves to be a window to the virtual world. Personal media brands to be, like Joost, will take advantage of this, and serve the watcher his or her own personal entertainment every night. So the couch potato can just sit at the couch, zap from one program to the other, and be sure to see what friends, colleagues and acquaintances have seen too. This will come in 2008, and have a massive breakthrough after that. It also marks the beginning of the end of TV programming we now know at analogue as well as digital channels.

iTunes is now offerering movies, starting in the US with 1000 movies, and varies the price per movie. For an existing movie you pay $2.99, for a new movie $3.99 and for an HD movie $4.99 (em, Dutch). We slowly say goodbye to the fixed price. Soon we will pay $0.39 for a very old movie, or $28.00 for a top movie at 3x HD with interactivity. Besides we will get discounts if we buy more often: we get discounts for being loyal customers. Or we will get a free movie every now and then. With that the fixed price, the fixed P from the 5 Marketing P’s, will be reduced to something we temporarily knew in the mass production and mass communication era. Step by step we say goodbye to this. And we go back to the time when the grocer recognized you, and every now and then gave you something for free. Back then it was all about relationships, and that is what it will be about in the future again.

In the United States it will soon be possible to legally download movies via iTunes, and watch them on TV through Apple iTV. The company has signed the first contract with Fox (em, Dutch)

Very soon we will be able to browse through a trailer caroussel, and directly watch the trailers. Movies we have recently seen, of course are not shown in this caroussel. Besides, this initiative will especially lead to new content, offered at differing prices. Movies might cost as much as 20 euros. But then you have something very exclusive. And after that your own iTunes will also be available at every other screen or display, wherever in the world. And once it becomes really interactive, it will really kick off. Only then TV (and advertising on TV) will really have a problem. In the future personal media brands will completely take over the traditional role of broadcasters: programming a night of entertainment. This future is getting very close though.

Through video site Joost Coca-Cola now facilitates people to share their comments on (fragments in) video content. Users who have installed Joost already, can download a so-called joba document, which then can be activated in Joost. Then their comments appear in bubbles, with a wink to Coca-Cola (cz). By making it possible for third parties to leave their comments, Joost can quickly grow. People will send each other fun fragments, only Joost has to be installed. In the end a developing personal media brand like Joost will facilitate these comments itself. After all, if you are positive about something, Joost will want to know, so it can give you even more surprising content on your next visit.

Google video now indexes videos of all kinds of sources, among which of course YouTube, but also video.yahoo.com, metacafe, expotv.com, myspace video’s and some Japanese video sites (dc, Dutch). Thus personal media brands slowly develop. In 2007 it is all about category completeness: first all videos together. So we will be able to sit comfortably on the couch, and get a selection of everything that has ever been made. So we are sure not to miss anything. If we then also know what our friends watch, we are all up-to-date tomorrow in school, at the office or with our sports team. This is a small step in that direction.